THE application for an eight-storey residential apartment building on the Point Street carpark site, by Sirona Urban, has triggered some negative feedback, that the building is too high and that large apartment buildings create slums.
Talk to those who live in real highrise buildings in Europe, the USA and Asia and ask them if they believe they live in a slum.
I live in a seven-storey, 56-apartment building, and whilst it is an old building, constructed as the nurses quarters for Fremantle Hospital in the 1970s, it is most definitely not a slum.
Arundel Court, where I live, is a community of respectful people, well looked after by strata managers DGRE. Although it is real inner city living, it is pretty peaceful, if one can handle the traffic noise from South Terrace, and the occasionally loud voices from people leaving pubs at night.
The sentiment that buildings over five storeys are too high for the Fremantle CBD is not keeping up with the demands of our modern society.
Urban renewal is essential for Fremantle to prosper and progress, and that means urban infill, with more substantial and higher buildings.
It is as inevitable here in Western Australia as it is all around the world.
New city developments are the building blocks for our future, layer upon layer, the new and modern grows on top of, and next to the established and old.
It is how cities all over the world organically grow.
Look at Istanbul, Hamburg, Dresden, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, etc.
Old and new live happily together and create more interesting and more vibrant cities, full of activation and people.
Old cities with a lot of heritage, such as Fremantle, are not museums.
They are alive, they develop, they grow, change, and modernise, as we do personally, because the river of life demands that.
There are generational changes, where the needs and likes of people change.
We need to adapt to that.
Where we once all wanted the Great Australian Dream of a house with a garden, now more and more people want apartment living.
We cannot live in the past and believe all change is bad, although we most definitely need to protect the heritage character of our cities, especially in Fremantle’s historic West End.
Our city’s heritage is not under threat when the neglected Inner East of the city gets developed.
It will be very good for Fremantle to have much more activation in that part of town, with many hundreds of people living there.
Fremantle has good access to public transport with the train and busses, and hopefully, when the numbers stack up, light rail to Murdoch and Cockburn, and ferries to Perth and other destinations along the Swan river.
The modernisation and progress of our city depends on substantial residential growth, that can only be achieved with bigger and higher buildings.
We need to be realistic and pragmatic about that.
Procrastination is not an option for Fremantle. It is not sustainable! Life is not stagnant, it constantly evolves.
We are the children, students, activists, and community leaders, but as age catches up with us, we become parents and former leaders, to make way for the new generations of activists, leaders and parents.
Cities are like that as well.
They don’t, and should not remain the same, as growth shows our achievements and how far we have come.
It shows we have learned from the past, and embraced new technology and new thinking.
We no longer build the way they used to do, the same as I no longer take photos on film, but use digital technology for that.
We cannot escape reality and we cannot stop progress.
Developers Sirona Urban contacted me to say that they intend to start with the construction of the Point Street development next year. That would be great.
Roel Loopers