Perry Lakes Redevelopment Amendment Bill 2010

Extract from Hansard
[COUNCIL - Tuesday, 23 November 2010]
p9250b-9252a
Hon Dr Sally Talbot; Hon Lynn MacLaren; Hon Robyn McSweeney
[1]
PERRY LAKES REDEVELOPMENT AMENDMENT BILL 2010
Second Reading
Resumed from 21 October.

HON LYNN MacLAREN (South Metropolitan) [5.43 pm]: I rise to support the Perry Lakes Redevelopment
Amendment Bill 2010 on behalf of the Greens. I will make a few brief comments on this bill and also seek some
clarification, and perhaps some updates from the minister on where the development is up to.

I agree, of course, with Hon Sally Talbot, who has pointed out that the changes that we are about to make are
minor, yet very important, and are not opposed. Hon Sally Talbot told members that the issues that led to the
section in the act on the operation of building laws have been resolved and this bill will return those powers to
the Town of Cambridge. That is different from what has happened with other powers in local government
recently; it is nice to be returning some powers to local government. Specifically, it is proposed to once more
allow the Town of Cambridge to administer the provisions under part XV of the Local Government
(Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1960. Those are all outlined in the explanatory memorandum of the bill, so I will
not go through that. The bill achieves the return of these powers not with the repeal of section 36, but with
amendments. As Hon Sally Talbot has indicated, I think it will be great to hear from the minister representing the
Minister for Planning about the rationale for that.

The two points I want to bring up relate to affordable housing and sustainability in design. The first home sites in
the new Perry Lakes redevelopment will be auctioned on 4 December. I do not know whether other members
saw it, but recently there was a nice article with a photo in the real estate section of the state paper titled
“Modern vision for Perry Lakes”. The article gave the date of the auction and detailed some of the
development’s architectural features, which was quite nice. I was looking for something in the article about the
sustainability criteria that we inserted into the bill. I am interested to hear the minister’s view on that.

Secondly, the provisions for the AK Reserve development were spelt out in section 12 of the principal act, the
Perry Lakes Redevelopment Act 2005. I understand that facilities for basketball and athletics have been
completed and only the rugby facilities are outstanding. The statutory conditions focus on the minimisation of
water use, utilisation of recycled materials in the construction of the facilities and energy use et cetera.

The conditions were included in the principal act through amendments moved by the Greens to ensure that thegovernment is serious about building sustainable developments. I think today is a good opportunity to hear from the minister about whether the parliamentary direction has been satisfied. Would the minister please provide
some information regarding compliance with section 12 of the act? The terms used in the act gave the minister a
duty to maximise certain features and included a way out by including the words “if possible”. Hopefully that
wriggle room that we put in the act has not been used too much.

Regarding the Perry Lakes Stadium site, I understand that planning for the actual building of the homes at the
old stadium site has advanced, that first plans have been agreed on and that first auctions have been prepared.
Sustainable building requirements for the residential development at the stadium site are included in the Perry
Lakes Redevelopment Act 2005 in section 27. I will not go through and list the provisions in section 27, which
start at subsection (3), but those subsections refer to conservation of water, use of recyclable materials, and
establishment of flora that is indigenous et cetera. Can the minister please specify how each of these
requirements has been met in the proposed plans? I know that may be difficult for the minister on her feet, but it
would be nice to have an update on whether the very carefully listed sustainability criteria have been followed. It
is probably good for other builders to understand how these sustainability requirements are being met. After all,
Perry Lakes is a very important development that the state is undertaking.

As an additional point, although the act makes senior accommodation compulsory, the biggest need is for social
housing. I asked a question last week in Parliament about the amount of affordable housing that has been
included in the Perry Lakes development. From the answer to my question without notice, I gleaned that there is
a maximum of 606 dwellings, including single residential, duplex, townhouses and apartments, of which 240 are
small. They are 100 square metres or smaller. That is a high percentage—about 39 per cent in my maths—of
small dwellings. That is good, because we have a lack of small dwellings in the city and it is great that that was
incorporated in the Perry Lakes development. However, my question was more to do with the affordability of
these dwellings and whether there were some mechanisms to keep the prices at a reasonable level. We know that
affordability has been a big issue in Perth, and, sometimes, just providing a smaller house is not providing an
affordable house as one can get quite a luxurious small house. I just wanted to get a more specific response about
the affordability criteria. I did hear in the answer to the question that there will be 30 dwellings that are designed
for people who have reached 55 years of age and that meet Australian Standard 1428 as required by the
redevelopment act, so five per cent will be senior accommodation, which is good. It would be nice if it were a bit
higher, but it is good that the government has managed that. With those few comments asking for more detail
about how the Perry Lakes development is meeting the sustainability criteria, the Greens (WA) support the bill.