AN Andy Warhol-style factory is planned for LandCorp’s housing estate in White Gum Valley.

The project is the brainchild of Sustainable Housing for Artists and Creatives, a non-profit housing cooperative in Fremantle.

SHAC has already secured 12 sites for affordable rental properties at the old Kim Beazley primary school site and is now hoping to raise $25,000 — which it hopes will be matched by Fremantle council — to build the arts factory.

“Central to the co-op’s ethos will be a vibrant and community-driven arts studio, a two-storey structure that facilitates both a community access hub on the ground level and individual studios above,” says SHAC chair Fiona Gavino.

“We also looking at creating an independent community facility.

“SHAC believes the liveability of any city is dynamically impacted by the contributions of the artists who live and work in it.”

Ms Gavino, a sculptor, says the accommodation is the first affordable housing provided specifically for artists in the greater Fremantle area.

She adds SHAC is the first WA housing co-operative to be created in 15 years.

Access Housing, which purchased the site and will build accommodation to be rented at lower than market rates to artists, is a project partner.

A precinct of solar homes at the site will generate and sell its own electricity via a new type of “citizens’ utility”, with around 40 having solar batteries.

The infrastructure will be paid for by the precinct’s strata, or body corporate, which will then act as a mini-utility, selling the power to individual owners, tenants and to the grid.

If you have your Herald early, SHAC is holding a fundraiser for its arts studio on April 22 at the Fibonacci Centre in Blinco Street, White Gum Valley.

Lots for the site went on sale last week with an average size of 300sqm. The sale includes a $10,000 sustainability package.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK