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Fremantle West End
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7 September 2020: West End Policy.
7 May 2016: West End Update
The Fremantle Society has made its submission to the State Heritage Office regarding the listing of the 'West End'.
The submission took a great deal of work over many weeks to prepare and we are grateful for the expertise within the Society that has allowed a strong case to be put for the resolution agreed at the public meeting, that the area to be listed should be basically the original West End Conservation Area minus Fremantle Prison, the area that has been considered since 1975 to be the West End Conservation Area.
It has only been in the last few years through political interference, that the West End area has been reduced, to suit developers, putting at risk the heritage of the historic town.
This is a major issue, and the merits of the Fremantle Society proposed area became more apparent the more study that was carried out.
Remember, any person can at any time make a proposal to the State Heritage Office for a listing. Unfortunately no Fremantle property has been listed by the State Heritage Office since 2012.
The photograph with this article shows the current 5 storey Sirona development at 8 Packenham Street that Dr Lutton warned of two years ago and which caused him to resign from the council's design committee. His letter from 2014 in the Fremantle Herald is reproduced in full below:
Freo-ness at risk
19 September 2014
FREMANTLE city council is misusing its planning scheme to facilitiate poor development outcomes in Fremantle’s heritage-rich West End precinct.
The development industry argument that heritage hinders commercial progress is alive and well and people who try to voice their concerns are labelled “negative”.
Two over-height and poorly designed developments have now been approved in the West End because developers claimed extra height is needed in this height–restricted area in order to achieve commercially viable developments.
For years, in Perth’s CBD, cynical developers have shoe-horned characterless buildings behind heritage facades and this approach is now being applied in Fremantle where approving authorities are jumping to support their initiatives.
It was deplorable to hear that in Fremantle recently the council, at a specially convened meeting, listened to a conga line of commercially-focussed people speaking in support of the redevelopment of Atwell Arcade while one lone figure tried in vain to remind the council of its responsibility to heritage conservation.
What is glaringly obvious here is the powerful influence—both negative and positive—that sense-of-place has on urban dwellers is not understood. The unique sense-of-place associated with heritage environments is highly valued in most Australian capital cities because it offers respite from otherwise utilitarian intensity.
Sense-of-place triggers strong memories, attachments and behaviours at community and personal levels. Our very identities are shaped by sense-of-place. Fremantle’s West End precinct, regarded as Perth’s most valuable tourism asset, exhibits a sense of place found nowhere else in the Perth metropolitan area. This is largely due to its scale, streetscape and evocative architecture. Alarmingly, a pattern may be emerging which threatens the overall integrity of this very special place.Inappropriate developments are now being approved in the West End by misusing a clause in the town planning scheme intended to protect Fremantle’s heritage character. The clause gives the council the capacity to vary any site or development provision, without limitation, in order to preserve heritage values.
However, it does not give the council carte blanche to disregard other broader aims dealing with a variety of issues including preservation of Fremantle’s character. Paradoxically, this powerful clause aimed at heritage preservation is being cherry-picked from a planning framework to facilitate developments which compromise heritage values.
There are two critical points here. First, the capability of a property to return a development profit is never a criterion used to assess development applications. Only in major urban redevelopment areas is it considered relevant.
Developers always push the envelope and in localities anxious to see development occur they will try to convince gullible decision-makers to accommodate greater demands. Regardless of how compelling a developer’s commercial argument may be it has no place in any development assessment process. It was highly inappropriate for Fremantle’s design advisory committee (DAC) to cite commercial capability as a reason to support the Atwell Arcade development. This is an issue well outside this DAC’s formal terms of reference. Additionally, there is nothing in Fremantle’s planning scheme which allows variations to site or development provisions to satisfy commercial capability.
Second, Fremantle councillors, and the DAC cannot work outside the totality of Fremantle’s planning framework, which comprises many interrelated documents thick with phrases such as: developments are to achieve an exceptionally high standard in terms of appearance; developments are to be distinctive befitting their location; and, developments are to complement and contribute to the community’s desired identity and character for Fremantle.
Additionally, the DAC must satisfy itself that a development promotes character by responding to and reinforcing locally distinctive patterns of development and culture. A third party objective assessment of the two approved projects would most likely conclude that neither satisfies the broad intent of many sections in Fremantle’s planning framework including the overall stated aim to protect and conserve Fremantle’s unique cultural heritage. The approvals could be open to challenge because they so obviously ignore many pertinent sections of Fremantle’s planning framework.
Precedent is everything in planning and the precedent is now set for increased heights and characterless modern buildings in the West End. Preservation of the community’s desired character for Fremantle, a clearly stated aim of Fremantle’s planning scheme, has been ignored in order to satisfy development-driven commercial gain. Future developers can now expect height increases anywhere in the West End, even when the design outcomes are perfunctory and the results are clearly visible from the surrounding streets. All they need do is maintain the building’s façade, which they should be doing as a matter of course in this precinct, make a few internal heritage preservation gestures and then propose whatever they like behind and above. In the process the West End’s overall cohesive scale and unspoilt sense of place is eroded.
The Fremantle community should think long and hard about its attitude to the West End because your elected members and their advisory committee are beginning the process of erosion and the character of this special place is not replaceable.
6 September 2020: West End Needs Better Protection.
26 August 2020: Save the West End - Again!
7 January 2020: Disfigurement of a World Famous Town. Who Cares?
7 May 2016: West End Update.
2 May 2016
'West End' Heritage Submissions: Correction - State Heritage Office have indicated that while the offical closing time for submissions is 5pm today Monday 2 May, they will accept submissions over the next couple of days (westend@stateheritage.wa.gov.au).
In yesterday's post to members it was stated that King's Square was once in West Ward of Fremantle. West Ward in 1905 was the area within one quarter of a mile from the post office, which until 1907 was in Cliff Street, so West Ward would not have reached King's Square then.
Below is an article from Agnieshka Kiera, former heritage architect at the Fremantle Council for 25 years and the person who knows more than anyone about the reasons why the area to be listed should be the Fremantle Historic Town and NOT the area proposed by Fremantle Council. The article is long but you can use it to aid your submission.
Agnieshka Kiera: A Chance to get Fremantle Heritage Right
It seems that everybody in Fremantle values the city’s heritage and feels excited about the pending listing of its area on the State Heritage Register. In this respect Fremantle is rich: the largest number of heritage listed places in WA, the largest number of the listed areas, the only one in WA cultural site on the World Heritage, the top tourist destination and now, potentially its whole historic core to be entered on State Register - an incredible opportunity to unite and support the proposed listing. It has taken a long time for the culture of heritage appreciation to mature in Fremantle, and the nomination itself has also taken the City of Fremantle a number of years to initiate and prepare. The opportunity to legally sanctify an area of Fremantle as significant to the State of Western Australia is rare, so important to get it right the first time. Yet, again, the community is divided.
So what is it about?
Despite plenty of statutory evidence to the contrary, the City of Fremantle chose and negotiated with the WA Heritage Office a nomination of a fragment of the historic centre of Fremantle for State Heritage listing, the area commonly referred to as the west end;
In accordance with the well-researched and documented evidence, the Fremantle Society is instead advocating nomination of the whole historic area, which includes the Town Hall, Railway Station, Fremantle Markets and Arthur Head – the so called Fremantle Historic Town.
In this case the City nominated the area of Fremantle, but according to the Heritage Act, any member of the public or organization can nominate a place to the State Register. After all, appreciation of the city’s heritage is not an exclusive right of politicians or bureaucrats. Fremantle Society is using the statutorily prescribed step of the nomination process, which compels Heritage Office to consult the community early on and obligates it to take the community feedback into consideration while determining, among other things, a curtilage of the area.
There is no surprise that heritage is a highly contestable area, all various shades of grey. Heritage is not a mathematical science, so whoever is expressing an opinion could be right.
This is why the nomination process specifies undertaking a rigorous and comprehensive heritage evaluation of the nominated place in order to arrive with an objective statement of its significance (http://stateheritage.wa.gov.au/state-heritage-register/assessment-nomination). The documentary evidence required by the State Government is a critical first step of the nomination process and, ultimately, forms the most objective basis for the final judgment regarding boundaries of the area.
When in 2011 the City of Fremantle, with assistance of the community-based group, initiated the nomination process, it had commissioned Heritage and Conservation Professionals to research, evaluate and define the area’s significance as prescribed by the Heritage Office.
The report produced the required evidence and arrived at a comprehensive statement of significance and curtilage of the Historic Town of Fremantle (http://fremantlesociety.org.au). Yet the Heritage Office using the same documentary evidence and self modified statement of significance, has reduced the area to include only the so called west end.
To date neither the City nor Heritage Office offered any compelling expert evaluation to support the reduction of the expert recommended area. Its one liner that the west end is ‘the most intact and legible example of gold rush architecture’ applies equally to the Fremantle Historic Town, including the street network, Railway Station, Kings Square, and the city’s symbol and landmark, Town Hall. However, in listing an area of Fremantle, there is more at stake than a due, statutory recognition of its significance. It would give owners and the City of Fremantle opportunities to seek heritage funding, making heritage agreements, ensuring harmony of new development within and around the listed area, including curtilage, landscaping and public spaces prior to development taking place and with the main objective to ensure public benefits.
It is so because the statutory listing of the whole historic core would form a base for translating heritage listing into the planning standards and controls in the listed area, providing a framework for development. The current, much more generic LPS4 zoning and height control offer no such prudent mechanism as it has no design process to inform the outcome at any scale prior to development. Instead it provides a framework for the developers’ led growth of the city immediately adjacent to the heritage area.
The only opportunity for the City and State to intervene is to slightly moderate aspects of the proposed development after a developer has submitted a proposal. It is this part of the planning process that currently generates so much uncertainty, thus conflict, between the developers, authorities and community. The larger area would provide a transition zone around the west end to protect its integrity while the reduced area offers no such transition.
So nominating the larger area provides a more solid rationale for a prudent conservation master planning as a next step following the heritage listing. It is the Fremantle Society’s proposal that will ensure good heritage outcomes, not the currently proposed reduced area.
Heritage decisions don’t belong solely to Elected Members. In this respect the community, Council staff, the Minister for Planning, SAT, even the developers make heritage decisions. The WA prevailing culture propagates the view that heritage stands in the way of development. So the developers’ lead development is based on the prevailing, generic views about what’s profitable and rarely take into consideration uniqueness and specificity of the locality as inspiration to creatively explore the design option. In light of the conflicting perception of values, it is important to ensure that the procedural fairness and transparency forms the basis for the final decision regarding deciding boundaries of an area. There are many reasons for celebrating shared heritage in Fremantle and important for the decision makers to be flexible and generous rather than autocratic and callous in recognizing the built and social heritage of the city as its capital. Especially where there is an opportunity to stand by the community and its values.
The community response to Heritage Office’s call for submission would become an expression of the Fremantle’s heritage social values, especially if the submissions would stand by the Fremantle Society’s supported nomination.
2 March 2016
References and Links
The Fremantle West End Conservation Policy 1979, adopted 1990, as amended 1992 is available in full online (not on this site).
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 2 September, 2020 and hosted at freotopia.org/society/campaign/westend.html (it was last updated on 11 May, 2024). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.