Both sides of State politics have failed to provide a visionary planning policy for Perth’s CBD, according to a leading urban planner. Joe Poprzeczny reports.
WESTERN Australia’s two major political parties should wholeheartedly embrace the challenge of transforming Perth into a world-class city.
The call – on the eve of the 2005 State election – comes from one of the State’s leading urban planners, Emeritus Professor of Geography, Martyn Webb.
He said the days of ad hoc amending and re-planning of Perth’s central precincts, which should have ended decades ago, were still very much with us.
And the primary reason for this was because a single over-arching planning agency – tailored to foster continuity and ongoing co-operation between the needs of CBD businesses, residents and employers and the State Government – had not been created.
Professor Webb said that, as Perth celebrated its 175th birthday in 2004, it was still little more than “an overblown provincial town”.
“Let’s be honest, Perth, thanks to past mistakes by the old city council and the ongoing neglect of successive Labor and non-Labor State govern-ments only had two real assets – Perth Water and Kings Park,” he said.
“Perth has no assets worth speaking of other than these.
“And it’s because of this that it lacks a distinctive image.”
Professor Webb joined the University of WA in 1964 and was consultant to the City of Adelaide for its re-planning during the 1970s.
He has travelled extensively in the US studying planning and regional governance and regularly lectured architects and geographers on planning during his academic career.
Both the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Planning Institute of Australia have recognised his contributions to planning and architecture with honorary awards.
Professor Webb stressed that his criticisms shouldn’t be seen as extending to Perth’s suburbs, which he saw as “undoubtedly world-class” dormitory precincts that were both well-serviced and generally well planned.
His criticisms focused solely on the way the CBD along Perth Water’s northern shoreline, North-bridge, West Perth and East Perth, had been neglected.
He said the essential first step was the establishment of a State capital development commission (SCDC) through an act of parliament.
Because of protracted neglect, both the Labor and Liberal parties should commit themselves during the current election campaign to an ongoing program of far-sighted planning by the creation of a capital city development commission, Professor Webb said.
Like other Australian capitals Perth had a dual role – an ambassadorial one, as the State capital, and as a residential and employment centre for many tens of thousands of Western Australians.
“Only when Perth has a capital city development commission will it finally have a chance of steadily emerging to become a world-class city and a State capital all Western Australians can be proud of,” Professor Webb said.
He said an SCDC should embody the planning responsibilities of both the City of Perth and State government with half its members being appointed by the government and the other half by the city.
It should have an independent chairperson.
After the City of Perth’s restructure in the mid-1990s a cumbersome system involving three liaison committees between the city and State government was established. They are:
• Capital City Committee (CCC) consisting of the premier (chairman), lord mayor, and the ministers of transport, tourism and planning;
• Capital City Technical Committee (CCTC) consisting of the CEOs of the ministries of the CCC. It is chaired by the CEO of the City of Perth, and
• Capital City Development Committee (CCDC) consisting of the lord mayor and representatives of industry, housing, retail and building owners.
“A single SCDC should have the powers already embodied in the East Perth Redevelopment Authority,” Professor Webb said.
Such a planning agency would come to steadily embrace the vistas needed for a capital city and the needs of the CBD’s resident, employers and employees.
Professor Webb said the October 2003 Liberal policy paper titled, Postcode 6000 – A Future for Perth, was inadequate since it fell short of what the city required.
Postcode 6000 commits a future Liberal government to developing a city charter, an idea first promoted by the Perth council in 2001.
That Liberal commitment calls for: retention of historical and heritage buildings; ensuring the City of Perth’s status as a State capital by act of parliament; and unspecified moves to create a city that’s safer, attractive, and offering entertain-ment, cultural, artistic and rec-reational facilities.
And it acknowledges the value of community consultation.
But it fails to create an overarching planning agency that would ensure its otherwise impeccable wish-list was able to be legislatively implemented through co-ordinated planning of the CBD, Northbridge and East Perth and West Perth.
And this despite the fact that it says: “A key principle of Postcode 6000 is a working partnership between the State Government and the City of Perth, one providing co-ordination and expertise, the other management.
“This would form the basis of a City Charter.”
Professor Webb said the only way of ensuring what the Liberals called “a working partnership” could occur was by creating a development commission, not merely a city charter.
During 2003 Professor Webb was a member of the City of Perth’s Railway Committee, which drew-up a proposal for the sinking of the Perth-Fremantle railway line all the way from the Horseshoe Bridge to the Mitchell Freeway.
That committee was convened in response to the Gallop Govern-ment’s $1.5 billion plan to link Mandurah and Joondalup by rail, which had overlooked the long-term enhancement of the CBD through which the line would pass via the Narrows Bridge and below William Street.
The Gallop Government’s plan was a revamped version of the Court Government’s proposal to have the Mandurah line entering the CBD via Kelmscott and therefore via the long-established Armadale line, rather than over the Narrows Bridge and below William Street.
The railway committee’s February 2004 report made clear that, if the William Street tunnelling didn’t incorporate sinking the railway between the Horseshoe Bridge and Mitchell Freeway, permanent planning damage would be inflicted upon the CBD since the Perth-to-Fremantle rails could not be subsequently sunk.
Despite months of meetings and consultation with key government officials, including especially those from Westrail, Perth’s Victorian era railway yards between Wellington and Roe streets are set to remain in place.
And the Liberal Opposition failed to criticise the Government for failing to adopt the railway committee’s plan.
Professor Webb said the committee’s report had basically restated the 1911 rail-sinking proposal of the then WA Govern-ment’s architect, William Hardwick.
“Hardwick made it quite clear he never had confidence in the Railway Department favourably responding to his ideas,” he said.
Professor Webb said by failing to sink the railway line between the Horseshoe Bridge and the Mitchell Freeway the State Government had missed a monumental opportunity to commence the transformation of Perth into a world class city.
He was critical of Westrail’s failure to back City of Perth’s plan for the reclamation, sinking and redevelopment of the entire segment of derelict railway yards.
