Report to Councillors and the People of Dalkeith on the City of Nedlands

DALKEITH REDEVELOPMENT (PRECINCT NO 18) CONFIDENTIAL REPORT NOVEMBER 2007

I, Emeritus Professor Martyn Webb resident at 102 Circe Circle, Dalkeith since 1965 request and require the City of Nedlands to take account of the following objections to the implementations of the recommendations as set in the above mentioned report which is now before council.

The relevance of planning proposals to the area under consideration and to Nedlands City Council’s existing planning policies.

It needs to be said, from the outset, that the Precinct 18 draft report is a misguided attempt to create, in the heart of Dalkeith, the “centre” which the dormitory suburb of Nedlands supposedly lacks. Misguided not only because the draft ignores the upgrading and redevelopment of Claremont Town Centre as a district centre, but also because what are completely inappropriate and out of scale “mainstreet” proposals for Dalkeith are, in fact, ideally suited to Stirling Highway and Broadway.

1. Community planning must be a participatory process

Community planning requires the active participation of citizen and local government in decision making from the inception of the process>
Participation is the complete opposite to consultation.
Consultation is a process by which a planning agency calls for submissions and comments on a proposed plan after it has been either wholly or partially drafted for approval by the Planning Commission. Participation, on the other hand, requires that a proposal to plan is put to the community from the moment that the decision to plan is made such that the community becomes directly involved in its formulation and adoption.
Thus, although Council is to be congratulated on adopting the idea of Precinct Planning, the Dalkeith Precinct plan as proposed falls far short of the spirit of Precinct Planning as a participatory process in the following respects:

Participation in decision making means openness and a constructive dialogue between planners, the people and their elected representatives: and not, as in the Precinct 18 report, the presentation of “ready-to-bake” plans at confidential meetings with stakeholders.
Holding private meetings with residential land owners seeking support for their proposal to sub-divide existing blocks of land in Waratah Avenue and Circe Circle: council officers, no matter how innocently, were in effect offering capital appreciation inducements ranging from $500,000 to, in extreme cases, possibly more than $1,000,000 (depending on location and degree of redevelopment): and thus, in principle, breaching council’s pecuniary interest rule. For example, if the 29 landowners were to be granted sub-divisional rights the thousands of Dalkeith people who were denied these rights would be gifting somewhere in the the order of $15,000,000.
The draft plan’s objectives and the precinct boundaries have been clearly stated and put to the public for discussion before any further action was taken. Despite denials, what was in fact presented presented was a “ready-to-bake” redevelopment plan thatcould have been presented to the WA Planning Commission with little or alteration.
The fundamental rule of planning, the greater the change - the greater the need for research, was not followed is evident throughout the report. One glaring example is, notwithstanding the fact that the Claremont Centre is at present undergoing an upgrade as a sub-regional retail and commercial centre, no evidence was adduced to justify the proposed massive retail and commercial development west of Alexander Road on a scale comparable to Rokeby Road in Subiaco.
Precinct planning is fundamentally about resolving differences, where they exist, between the objectives and policies of planning authorities – in this case between the City of Nedlands Council (CON), Council’s staff, and the Department of Planning and Infrastructure (DPI) and the people of Dalkeith who for years have supported Council’s long-established residential policy for Dalkeith as a R10 single family density. This situation has been aggravated by the Department of Planning and Infrastructure’s (DPI) metropolitan wide policy of forcing increased residential densities aimed at reducing the use of the private motorcar. Therefore, the actual extent to which the DPI is either directly or indirectly engaged in using state powers to coerce CON or its staff should have been made public by council officers from the very start of the process and in writing: especially since council officers were, apparently, negotiating with a project officer DPI from from the very beginning.
Precinct planning should be internally consistent with its stated aims and objectives by ensuring there are no contradictions. For example, the report’s forward claims that “Future development proposals should acknowledge and respond to the historical development patterns of the area i.e. maintain built form that compliments the village values”. (p. 5) Having said that, the Precinct 18 plan, with its proposed mixed use buildings up to five storeys, hundreds of metres of commercial and retail frontage, proposes completely the opposite.

2. Precinct 18 is NOT a Concept Plan

A concept is something conjured in the mind. Concepts arise out of experience and imagination. They represent no more than a point of departure for a debate or discussion: or a scaled down version of what is proposed. (See Appendix A for a fuller description of a concept plan)
Precinct Plan 18 goes so far beyond the true meaning of a concept plan that it is, in most respects an “oven ready” plan which could have been left as is without any public consultation until the statutory 42 day period for submissions: by which time it would have been virtually impossible to have made any significant changes.
This is clearly evidenced by the fully detailed regulations set down on pages 18-36 under General Provisions and the Addendum pages 1-7.
The consultant firm which drew up the plan must have been given a brief that required it to go beyond the concept stage.
This is confirmed by the fact that alterations and amendments made by council officers to Precinct 18’s General Provisions following the public meeting held at Dalkeith Hall are not, as one would have expected, judging from what was said from the assurances given at the public meeting, about the basic issues, but are all mere matters of detail.
Nevertheless and at the appropriate time, items listed under the heading General Provisions are of such importance that they need to be examined carefully with regard to their validity and applicability with regard to their implementation in Dalkeith.

3. The core concepts

Precinct 18 Plan is not a concept plan. It is so conditioned by (a) the General Provisions already alluded to and (b) the highly detailed Development Area Guide Lines (DAGL) for each of the Character or Development Areas (DA) or Precincts that any chance of actually discussing the Concept Plan set out on pages 12-17 on its merits, is treated as no more than a framework on which to peg development controls.
The Concept Plan divides Precinct 18 into five character areas. With the exception of what is described s the Village Core, and Circe Circle, the remaining DAs are really mixed activity zones.
The five Character Areas are sub-divided into 18 areas variously referred to either as Precincts (actually sub-precincts) or, more generally, or as DAs.
Each of the 18 sub-units is first described in general and easily understood terms the Concept Plan (pages 12-17), and then considerable detail in Section 6 in Housing Diversity Zone Use Classes tables. Each use is given a rating as either permitted or subject to subject to council’s use of its discretion.
With the exception of DAs 13 (Southern end of Genesta) and 14 (Circe Circle) all other Das allow commercial uses. All DAs allow for apartment density residential development.

4. None of the proposed 18 Development Areas is acceptable

There are a number of clear and very obvious objections to what is proposed.

The scheme, when taken as a whole, is out of scale and out of character.
The out-of-scale nature and extent of the proposed changes is illustrated by two perspective diagrams superimposed on oblique air photographs views as seen from eastern and western ends of Precinct 18. These show the built form design envelop as it would be if all DAs went to the limits allowable.

View along Waratah looking east from Roberts St showing the extent of the development west of Alexander #road

The plan’s key proposal, the conversion of both sides of Waratah Avenue from Adelma to Roberts Road from single family residences with their large tree gardens front and back to zero lot line retail on the ground floor, commercial uses on the first floor, and residential uses at 1st, 2nd, 3rd and fourth floor levels.
The fact that no explanation is given as to why such an enormous increase is required is inexcusable.
Furthermore, since there is a marked difference in setbacks between residential and commercial properties piecemeal development over the time taken to fully develop the land west of Alexander Road (if it were ever economically feasible which is doubtful) would inevitably lead to loss of amenity as the result of spasmodic development.

Waratah Looking West
Waratah Avenue looking west from Adela Road.
Note the extraordinary effect of including north-west Circe Circle facing the school as a part of Precinct 18

The plan breaches the City Council’s well known policy of retaining existing residential areas Residential Code 10 (R !0) by resisting pressures by both residents and the Planning Commission to change this policy.
In view of this policy, one has to ask why Nedlands City Council allowed a proposal to dramatically change this policy to proceed as far as it has?
The Development Areas (DAs) are little more than old fashioned zones tarted up to look like precinct character statments. Precincts-cum-development areas should have been drawn as unique, easily identifiable places but they are not.
The Village Centre is split into two separate areas; one at the eastern and the other at western extremity of Waratah Ave between Adelma and Roberts Road.
Urban General comprises three separate areas all of which are currently residential. One is a block of land both side of Waratah Avenue to the west of Shrike lane, another is the northern end of Alexander road; and the third is along Genesta Crescent.
Because the Circe Circle DA, unlike the all the other DAs, is not in direct contact with Waratah Avenue precinct one has seriously to question why this portion of Circe Circle should have been added to Precinct 18.
The proposal to allow DA 14, Circe Circle (part of) to be converted into three storey, high density, one-side lot line apartment blocks with minimal front and rear set backs of 6 and 4 metres respectively is not only out of character with the rest of Circe Circle, but with (a) greatly increased traffic and (b) the absence of families with children in a proposed multi-lot development requiring a minimum of one dwelling with a maximum floor area as 70m², puts the school opposite at risk morally as well as from traffic movements.
The lack of any social provision and the cavalier fashion in which the plan includes Dalkeith Hall (DA are 7) without comment or explanation as part of the retail and commercial Dalkeith Village core area.

Conclusions

We believe that the Council has been led into unnecessary expense by not following planning’s most fundamental principle survey before plan. In the case of Precinct 18 this should have include research into the need for any expansion retail and commercial activities beyond the areas already allocated. Such a survey would have included an assessment of the impact of the enlarging and deepening of Claremont Centre as the logical and nearest district centre.
Similarly, investigation into the true residential requirements of the area would have revealed that for the most part such is the value of land in Dalkeith the real reason for sub-division is profit taking disguised in many cases by social arguments concerning aged.
Indeed, so far as we are aware, Council has never conducted any research into what happens to such permissions as it has already given on social grounds to land owners. Nor, do it seems, have officers provided Council with a full assessment of the actual trends in residential development in the Dalkeith area and their impact upon the area’s famed treescape.
Similarly, Council appears to have fallen into the trap of assuming that more dwellings actually increases population when in fact non-family with children multiple dwelling lots at best seldom do more than maintain the same number of persons per lot. In some areas in metropolitan Perth populations has actually fallen as the result of conversion of family-friendly lots to flat and apartment dwellings.
The plan as proposed is marred not only be a lack, despite avowals to the contrary, of any sense of appreciation of Dalkeith’s remarkable treescaped humanised environment in which the presence of birds and their songs play a significant part, but also of any sense of social responsibility. The plan talks of community, and on the basis of a highly successful coffee shop it then invents what it calls “the village core” by imagining Genesta Crescent Park to be the equivalent to a “village green.”
Yet the same report, for reasons already given, totally ignored planner’s responsibility toward the school children who must make their way to and from school and who use the surrounding streets as part of the school environment: a neglect made worse by ignoring the fact that parents are already sufficiently worried as to ferry most of the children to and from school by car. Similarly, whether as part of the brief or not, the unconditional proposal to allow Dalkeith Hall, Dalkeith’s other community facility, to be developed as an integral part of what it calls “mainstreet” commercial development.”
Since Council owns this particular piece of property and, more importantly, has legally a social and community responsibility this piece of lands demands a use more in keeping the Council’s special responsibilities.
The author of this report reserve his right to comment further on the report; especially with regard to its Section 5 General Provisions and Section 6 Development Area Guidelines.

Martyn Webb
Hon Fellow Australian Planning Institute, Hon Fellow Australian Institute of Urban Studies; Hon Member Royal Australian Institute of Architects etc.

Appendix A

Conceptual models in Precinct and Local Planning
Planning conceptual models must be simple, easily understood visualisations of what is proposed aimed at achieving the following:

A summarisation of what will eventually involve detailed technical concepts.
The integration of the social, economic, environmental elements and their impacts upon the cultural landscape and established community values.
The intended outcomes and the value of these outcomes to the community.
The identification of knowledge gaps especially where the members of community know more about the locality and how it works than the professionals drawing up the model.
The direction and open participation of the community/stakeholders in the decision making process immediately following the primary decision to embark on a plan whereat it is little more than an idea.
A two way flow of information in the decision making process such that the community is never faced with a “pre-cast” plan: one drawn up in such detail that changes of almost any kind appear to threaten the competence of the professional officers, the authority of council, or the plan itself.
A clear understanding of the objectives of the plan, the reasons why it is being proposed and its social, economic, environmental and cultural impacts on the community.
And presented in such a way that the community may in turn develop alternative models for discussion and examination by the professionals for further discussion.

Those who present models must never forgot that they are the servants of the community, not its masters and must never use the argument that what is presented is too technical for lay-persons to understand.

Which seem to be interchangeable descriptions: see p. 8

Circe Circle was designed by Surveyor Hope as Western Australia’s first garden suburban sub-division shortly before the First World War.