IS THIS THE LAST NAIL IN SUBI’S COFFIN? Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse…let me give a bit of history here. For years just about everything in Subiaco and Shenton Park was zoned R30. This meant that if you had a block bigger than 650sqm you could subdivide it. So here and there people started building homes behind their main house. The council didn’t like this so during the 90’s they changed the overall zoning to R20 which meant that you needed 1,000sqm to subdivide – not many of those around here. So basically subdivision ceased. Not a bad thing – there were some overlooking issues and people didn’t generally like the infill aspect. Then in the early 2000’s the council slapped a Heritage Listing on virtually every house in the area. Everyone panicked. They misunderstood what it meant. They thought if it was Heritage Listed they couldn’t do anything to their home. This was rubbish, all it meant was that you had to maintain the façade, but you could extend,
renovate, do pretty much everything else you wanted apart from demolish. This would have been a good thing except they stuffed it up. They didn’t do any research and were just heritage listing anything – even 1980’s ‘look alike’ Colonials. So everyone was up in arms about this so eventually they had to abolish that concept altogether. Fast forward to present day, just
I can knock down my character home and build 3 units! Yippee! I called the planning department at the Subiaco Council and said “Are you serious?! Is this a Council initiative?!” the answer was “well sort of, it’s a bit of us and a bit of the State Government” Really?! Let me get this straight I said – “you are going to take a heritage area like Subiaco and, simply because
So there it is folks… your suburb is being hung out to dry, so if you don’t want to hear the mellow whistling of My Old Mans a Dustman,he lives in a council flat... yesterday I got a letter from the Subiaco council about a house I own in Gloster Street, putting forth a proposition to change all the zonings along the street and I presume, many other streets, to a zoning of R60!! This means
THE PROPERTY EXCHANGE
a train line runs through it, you are going to rezone virtually the whole suburb to become a development site?” The answer… “yes, well that’s the proposal.” I hung up from sheer shock.
212 Nicholson Road, Subiaco
9388 3988
Oh did I mention that you can also build up to three storeys – so if this is done next to you, be prepared to be overlooked big time – in more ways than one. So there it is folks… your suburb is being hung out to dry, so if you don’t want to hear the mellow whistling of “My Old Mans a Dustman…he lives in a council flat” you better shout loud and long against what can only be described as a proposed desecration of our stunningly beautiful, rich, colourful, historic suburb… because if this gets through…it’s dead. So please make your submission to prevent this disaster – you can do this online at www.haveyoursay. subiaco.wa.gov.au
by
Niki Peinke
Real Estate Advisor
niki@thepropertyexchange.com.au