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Mr Graham Foster
Chief Executive Officer
City of Nedlands
71 Stirling Highway
NEDLANDS WA 6009

Dear Sir,

I am writing to express my concerns and objection to the Dalkeith Redevelopment Concept Plan (Precinct No.18) and the Built Form Design Guidelines.

I live at 146 Waratah Avenue, to the west and beyond the development zone.

I am writing because I'm a resident of Dalkeith and believe that the proposal will adversely affect the area and, in my capacity as a director of one of Perth's established architectural practices, I have experience with development on this scale and believe that the Dalkeith proposal is fatally flawed.

For the period between 1997 and 2003 I was the project leader and designer of the Subiaco Square development for Hames Sharley architects. Subiaco Square is the mixed-use development surrounding the railway station at the junction of Roberts and Rokeby Road. It's at the centre of 'Subi Centro' which is the wider redevelopment of the area.

Subiaco Square was the product of many years of detailed anlysis by the Subiaco Redevelopment Authority, the most important of which was an 'Economic & Social Research Study' one of the conclusions of which was to highlight the need for development of this type, on this scale, at this location. Everything which followed at Subiaco Square did so within the framework for development established by this study including the 'Station Square Design Guidelines' which became the rule book for designers and developers. Subiaco Square is a transport oriented development, one that has excellent links via the railway, CAT bus and its pedestrian links at the end of the established Rokeby Road Retail Strip. Also, it was built on what was effectively waste land surrounding the old railway station.

By comparison the plans for Dalkeith appear to have come about without any evidence to suggest why a proposal of this type and size is justified in this location. The WAPC's 'Network City' and the 'State Sustainability Strategy' are not site specific and cannot inform the Dalkeith Concept Plans in the way that the demographic study that the SRA undertook for Subiaco did. Just as importantly, this part of Dalkeith has none of the transport links that are essential for the success of development on this scale. Even Hampden Road in Nedlands, the recent development of which I think has been successful, has a direct connection to the Stirling Highway and across the road to Broadway. The proposal for Waratah Avenue has no precedent in that it's completely surrounded by existing low density suburban homes and quiet streets.

I have more detailed concerns - as would any of the property developers I'm involved with - regarding the proportion of single bedroom accommodation, the depth of the lots and their suitability for street-front mixed-use building forms, building height and parking arrangements and the shear volume of commercial development proposed. But I believe that these are insignificant in the context of the Concept Plan having been being built without a foundation of solid research in the first place.

Good urban design comes about as a result of evolutionary processes, not cataclysmic as appears to be the case with the plans proposed for Dalkeith.

Yours Faithfully,

Mark Popplewell

Waratah Avenue
DALKEITH WA 6009

15 February 2008