Question Without Notice No. 902 asked in the Legislative Council on 16 September 2009 by Hon Lynn Maclaren
Parliament: 38 Session: 1
“Public spaces & public life perth 2009” — recommendations
902. Hon LYNN MacLAREN to the minister representing the Minister for Planning:
I refer to the “Public Spaces & Public Life Perth 2009” study completed by Gehl Architects and presented to the minister by Jan Gehl on 28 May this year.
(1) Has the department prepared any action plan or implementation plan in response to this report or its recommendations; if no, why not; and, if yes, can the minister table it?
(2) How many of the report’s eight recommendations is the government implementing?
(3) What is the time frame and budget allocated for each recommendation?
(4) If any recommendations are currently being implemented, can the minister describe their progress?
Hon ROBYN McSWEENEY replied:
I thank the member for the question.
(1) Immediately following the launch of the “Public Spaces & Public Life Perth 2009” publication on 28 May, the department reviewed the text to identify and tabulate the recommendations of the study. On 10 June 2009, a report on these outcomes was submitted to the Central Perth Planning Committee, which is the subcommittee of the WA Planning Commission principally concerned with the central city area. The CPPC resolved the following —
(a) to endorse the eight key recommendations of the “Public Spaces & Public Life Perth 2009” report by Gehl Architects;
(b) to request that the City of Perth coordinate a response in discussion with key stakeholders, including the Department of Planning;
(c) to request the City of Perth provide the coordinated report on how the recommendations of the “Public Spaces & Public Life Perth 2009” publication can be adopted as a step towards the implementation; and
(d) to await a detailed response from the City of Perth on those recommendations.
(2) Once the response from the City of Perth is received, the Department of Planning will seek to have government implement its share of the broad thrust of all recommendations. Of the more specific recommendations, there may be some development of the concepts offered to make them compatible with other government initiatives before they are implemented.
(3) The job of implementing the report’s recommendations will be an ongoing one. That will continue until we undertake another review of our city’s public spaces. The bulk of the implementation will take place as part of existing government programs; therefore, there is not expected to be any isolation of the budgets related to the implementation from existing government budgets.
(4) The report has ongoing influence on several major projects in the central city, including the central city planning framework, being progressed by the Department of Planning; the urban design framework, being progressed by the City of Perth; the hub project for the Perth city station and Wellington Street bus station, being progressed by the Public Transport Authority; the Northbridge Link project, being progressed by the East Perth Redevelopment Authority; the Perth waterfront project, being progressed by the Department of Planning; and regeneration of the Perth cultural centre, being progressed by EPRA.