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I love living in Perth…I like the fact it is far away, isolated and young.  I love it’s beautiful environs, mix of people and most of all it’s potential to be a creative cutting-edge place.

We don’t need to follow – we can lead and I certainly don’t think we are ‘dull’!

Last week I helped facilitate a gathering of people who were continuing the conversation about Perth as a CBD and metropolitan area (at the Capital City Planning Framework forum).  We were most interested in what the common place story for Perth is and how we can communicate and grow that story.  Sue Burrows, Director Development Services at the City of Subiaco was one of the speakers and she’s allowed me to reproduce her talk – thanks Sue!  So here it is.  Enjoy, I’m sure it will resonate with you as it did with me, both in terms of how we live now and the challenges we face whilst planning into the future…

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“Good morning, I am here today representing my planning colleagues from the inner local governments which include the City’s of Subiaco and South Perth, The Towns of Cambridge, Vincent and Victoria Park.  I would like start this presentation by providing an overview of the inner city environment, (the issues, opportunities and challenges), by using a series of words to create a picture.

The inner City suburbs have over a century of community building, blending the old with the new, the working class grit with new affluence.

We have:

• weatherboard to high rise
• Outhouses to penthouses.
• Backyards, courtyards and balconies.
• Stained glass windows and front yards designed to be seen.
• We have green leafy streets, secret streets, and back lanes,
• Cricket in the back yard, neighbours talking over fences, in our streets.  Our communities and visitors alike, gather at our local parks, Kings Park, the zoo or the river.
• We entertain with AFL, Rugby, and Soccer.
• Large music venues, resorts, theatres, pubs, clubs and small bars.
• Our local schools are again full.
• We have corner shops to magnificent mainstreets and town centres.
• We do have a local butcher, the weekly shopping trip, and top end retail.
• You can wine and dine from a world menu
• You can walk, cycle, train, bus or skate.
• We have remnants of our past Industrial and manufacturing estates,
• We have the ever expanding education and health institutions.
• We attract workers and visitors in their thousands
• We share our streets our facilities, our services with all walks of life.
• We have the same social and amenity benefits, or problems affecting any major inner City
• We have well defined traffic routes that lead to the City Core.  We also have traffic congestion, ever increasing parking demand, thru roads, freeways and railway lines that connect us, yet also divide our communities.
• We are diverse, eclectic, multicultural, with an ever changing urban fabric.

To the future, from Network City to Directions 2031, the inner city local governments have been planning to provide growth and prosperity.  Some areas reaching for the skies, other areas retaining blue skies.  We are planning for the communities of today and tomorrow and in doing so recognising the past, by ensuring our individual, character, heritage and uniqueness remains.  This is represented in each of the inner city local government’s strategic plans and visions.

Going forward we are planning for our future communities to be:

• Child friendly, safe and enticing to all ages.
• Diverse in demographic makeup, housing choices, employment opportunities, entertainment, recreational and tourism pursuits.

• We are planning for local communities, knowledge communities, blended communities, real communities.

• We want vibrant and diverse centres of activity
• We need to be Accessible, walkable and connected, not divided by major infrastructure.
• We need integrated transport options.
• Not to become clones of each other, but to protect the unique character and cultural aspects that makes an area attractive, not just its location.

Each local government is at various stages in master planning for the new wave of growth and urban living demands. Intensification of our urban fabric is occurring and will continue to do so.  In total 16 precincts have been identified in meeting new targets for growth. This does not include, the planning being undertaken to either create, or intensify nodes of development on our main streets and transit corridors.

We will see major growth on the river peninsulas, not only to take advantage of access to the City core, but spectacular views to the river, the City and our hinterland.  Balancing the old with the new, we are adding to the vibrancy of our main streets and activity centres, with a mixture of commercial uses to service both the local and the wider community, while providing living areas above.  Also preserving residential character neighbourhoods, which in the majority of cases have good building stock on small lots, they provide living choices, help to define urban form and provide green lungs for the City.

What is needed is:

• Better connections, mass transit systems that do not divide, but connect our major centres of activity, our health and educational institutions, our knowledge arc, tourist attractions and our town centres.  For example …….Crawley to Subiaco, Subiaco to Leederville.  Curtin University to the Perth/ Armadale line.  A station at South Perth.
• Old centres need to be reconnected. West Leederville and Leederville.
• Better connections north of the City Core connecting the east with the west.
• Utilizing the river as a way to connecting communities and attractions.
• The wider good needs to be serve, but not at the loss of our unique character and local accessibility.

The inner City local governments are working across their boundaries for the betterment of the central area, looking at the bigger picture, the future for inner City living, at growth and prosperity and being connected.

Thank you.”