Dear Echo News,
On Wednesday, February 11 City of Swan councillors accepted the city officer’s recommendation and voted down a motion by Cr Howlett to conduct a standard project management review of the Midland Oval redevelopment project (aka the New Junction).
On Tuesday, February 17, The West Australian advertised a City of Swan proposed sale of $650 per m2 of Midland Oval, about half of what the land is worth.
When the 2011 Midland Oval redevelopment masterplan (MORM) revealed plans to extend Midland Gate Shopping Centre onto Midland Oval land the community protested at length, including at two special electors’ meetings where the Town Hall was full of locals explaining why Midland should retain its only real Public Open Space.
However, council maintained the MORM with justification of ‘commercialisation’.
This has obviously failed; Midland Gate very quickly lost interest in this idea, the land acquired has become devalued, and we now see repeated examples where land purchased by the city at $1000/sqm or more, is being offered for sale at half price or less.
The oval’s 5.5ha public park being carved up for sale was used for football, soccer, cycling, bowling, tennis and croquet was worth about $55 million.
It is being sold off for a fraction of this amount, and Midland can never recover its greatest public asset, its Public Open Space.
The cost for all this land carving and a grid of new roads across Midland Oval already exceeds $50m.
Other assets have been pointlessly destroyed.
Midland is being asset-stripped whilst the new City of Swan suburbs are being provided with ample community facilities, plenty of parks and ovals, with 10 per cent Public Open Space (POS), supported by the votes of councillors who live in those areas.
Why won’t the City of Swan review this project?
Is it because a review would reveal that their commercialisation needs a new direction and show the original MORM has been outgrown by changes in retail and business infrastructure direction?
Does Midland really still need its only real parkland destroyed?
Do Midland ratepayers still have to watch their prime asset destroyed?
P Irwin
Midland Society Inc
Dear Echo News,
At a time when there is a well-known shortage of residential aged care beds in the City of Swan to meet the needs of our ageing local community, the state government has failed to keep its numerous promises to have the decommissioned Swan District Hospital placed on the open market to attract a buyer from the aged care sector.
Armed with the results of a study commissioned by the City of Swan in 2015 which revealed there would be a shortfall of 1150 residential aged care beds by 2036 if no new facilities were built, I and members of the City of Swan Community Care Services Advisory Committee commenced to actively lobby the newly elected Labor state government to make underutilised vacant land available to the aged care sector.
In written replies to our correspondence, both Cook and Saffioti, their respective chiefs of staff and senior policy advisors came back to us saying they were fully committed to having the hospital site rezoned to “special purpose use” which would allow for the building of new residential aged care facilities among other things, and further that they and staff at the lands divestment unit were working on plans to place the site on the open market to attract a buyer from the aged care sector.
With the appointment of Ben Wyatt to the position of Minister for Lands, I wrote to him seeking his assurances that the promises made by his ministerial colleagues would be honoured.
In a written reply from Minister Wyatt, dated March 13, 2019, he wrote an expression of interest will be undertaken for the Swan District Hospital site following an application being lodged with the City of Swan to rezone the site.
He said the rezoning will allow for the future redevelopment to include residential aged care, among other uses and eventual marketing for the site will identify the government’s commitment to making suitable land available for aged care development and will encourage proposals incorporating aged care to be submitted.
Having received that advice from Minister Wyatt, supported by the other numerous promises and commitments made by his ministerial colleagues, we assumed that the site would soon be placed on the open market for sale.
Sadly, all that changed when I received a further letter signed by Ben Wyatt dated September 11, 2020 in which he thanked me for the previous letter and said the former Swan District
Hospital had been committed to the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council (SWALSC), as part of the Native Title settlement, on the basis that it seeks to deliver a residential aged care outcome on a portion of the site.
When I sought further information (in writing) on why the minister had set aside all the previous promises to see an aged care facility built of the hospital site, he did not respond to the questions I asked.
We also later learnt that there was no record held at the Land’s Department that the SWALSC would be obliged to deliver some form of residential aged care if they accepted ownership of the site.
While neither I nor members of our committee are opposed to state government including ownership of crown land in the greater state-wide Native Title Settlement Plan, we cannot understand why the old hospital site was included given that it comprises just 10ha in size compared with the total land in the settlement plan being some 320,000 hectares.
Furthermore, there are some 14 plus substantial buildings still standing on the site which will eventually have to be demolished at some considerable expense.
We are also told there could be contamination in the soil which will add to the expense if the site is to ever be developed.
So much for planning for the needs of our local ageing community in the City of Swan.
R Carey
South Guildford
