By Emma Young
Letting developers ditch car bays for new apartment buildings is one radical measure Perth’s peak property industry body is proposing to triple the city's residential population.
On Friday, the Property Council WA will launch its Project 90K report at an event at which City of Perth, state and federal government representatives will discuss the Perth City Deal.
Perth city doesn't just need a funding deal – it needs some serious liveability planning, says the property industry. Credit: Lauren Pilat
Perth is one of the last cities to secure and announce how it will use the federal funding jackpot termed a “city deal”.
The deal and the Project 90K report will focus on a goal to triple Perth city’s population to 90,000 by 2050, from a base of 30,000.
Perth's population density is well below that of any other capital city apart from Darwin and Adelaide.
It presently contains 68 residents per hectare, a tiny fraction of Sydney’s 671 and well below half of the next up the list, Brisbane.
Reaching 90,000 residents would place Perth at a similar density to Brisbane.
But to achieve the desirability that would make people buy – and live in – Perth city apartments, not to mention make commercial building owners refurbish ageing eyesores, will require radical change, the Property Council report suggests.
Executive director Sandra Brewer said Perth currently required any building refurbishments – “so old office stock, C and D-grade buildings from the 1960s and 70s” – to include the decommissioning of any bays existing in excess of the bays required for modern developments.
In practice, this meant a loss of millions off the building value.
In one high-profile example, a 1970s St Georges Terrace building tenant was asked to decommission 99 of its 135 bays to be allowed to refurbish.
This meant existing tenants required compensation, Ms Brewer said.
“And the refurbishment is anything that’s an upgrade to the external building. We have examples of horrid old foyers they want to update, add a cafe and update the Terrace, but they would have to decommission the hundreds of bays, lose millions, so they don’t do it. Why would you?
“That is why those big ugly buildings still sit there.”
The same problem worked in the opposite direction for residential developers.
Sometimes a developer wanted to do a building without any parking spaces because they were confident they could sell apartments anyway due to centrality, but this was not allowed.
Alternatively, sometimes demand led to them wanting more bays than required. At The Towers at Elizabeth Quay, whose downsizer residents all wanted two car bays, the developer had to fight hard.
“We need discretion and flexibility,” Ms Brewer said.
“Especially if we move to shared transport, developers providing access to shared electric vehicles, for example.”
Project 90K also renews calls from the council’s previous 2017 report Big (and small) ideas for Perth, for the government to provide cultural offerings in the city.
It calls for the return of key cultural institutions to Perth including WA Ballet (presently in Maylands) and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
Earlier this week, WAtoday reported the original City Deal shortlisted option to move Edith Cowan University's Mount Lawley campus, including WAAPA, into Perth was at risk as given the federal government’s coronavirus-related stimulus package, it might now have as little as $200 million to spare for Perth while the cost of shifting the campus could be $600-$750 million.
Murdoch University is also competing for the City Deal funding.
WA Governor and former federal Labor leader Kim Beazley recently made the case for Perth to become a cultural centre, possibly through WAAPA moving, and on Thursday Ms Brewer echoed his arguments.
She said while $600-$800 million might not be good value for taxpayers, a partial solution could be to only move WAAPA, which given it only had 300 students or so, might be a lot cheaper.
The report also called for planning to start for Perth’s next major new cultural facility such as an Indigenous cultural centre or large lyric theatre.
Ms Brewer said Melbourne and Sydney theatres were full every evening of the latest shows from Broadway and London. Crown was exclusively hosting visiting large scale theatre shows and as the city grew.
Since Friday’s event was announced federal Cities Minister Alan Tudge has pulled out and the federal government has announced its stimulus package.
Ms Brewer said she had not expected a firm announcement on Friday.
The event had been about the government “demonstrating collaboration” with industry and for the industry to hear from the three levels of government involved.
“There is not a lot of awareness of what this City Deal involves so it was an opportunity for our audience to understand the process,” she said.