JOHN Curtin College of the Arts has scaled back plans for a new car park on bushland after a community backlash, but local architect Alan Ross is still not happy.

The specialist college has had a recent surge in enrolments and wanted to put demountable classes in its existing car park on the corner of Ellen and East Streets, pushing parking into an area revegetated by community groups nearly 20 years ago. 

Following an outcry, principal Mitchell Mackay wrote to surrounding residents, telling them the proposed new parking area on the southern side of the college had been scaled back.

“The amount of fencing to be relocated has been considerably reduced, allowing for public access to this area with minimum impact to vegetation and the environment,” he wrote.

“There are no plans for resurfacing the fenced area.”

• The yellow line shows the revised car park boundary.

But Mr Ross, a former member of the Friends of Bushy Hill, says he doesn’t want any open space lost.

“It is counter to current community values to allocate open space and vegetated environment for parking use,” he wrote.

“Many authorities, such as the City of Perth, actively charge developers to limit availability of parking on site – this encourages sustainable transport use and demonstrates to commuters to the cost of the resource. 

“In future, as our society shifts away from parking for single passenger private commuter vehicles, the suggestion that the land was needed for parking will be an embarrassing anachronism. Many of your enlightened students can see it for that today.”

The revised parking area is available to view at the college’s admin offices until Tuesday (March 17).