Here We Go Again

When the City of Perth was split (into Perth, Vincent, Cambridge and Victoria Park) in 1993/4, it was largely in response to bleating from central city property owners that they were 'subsidising' the residential suburbs. Now Lisa Scaffidi, having learnt nothing in the intervening two decades, is spouting the same rubbish.

As the City of Perth itself points out, "the residential rate is set at a relatively low level when compared to other metropolitan authorities to support the City's aim of encouraging people to reside in the City".  So, property and business owners in the City are subsidising residential property right now. It would be interesting to know what the residential rate would be if not set artificially low in this way.

But the fact that the City of Perth feels it needs to subsidise residential in the City is illuminating in itself. Vincent doesn't provide subsidies - and still people flock here to live - ask any real estate agent in the area.

The fact is that the inner-city areas surrounding the central business district bear the costs (not just financial, but social and environmental as well) of providing the access that those same city property and business owners see as essential to their commercial well-being. Heavy traffic on Beaufort and Fitzgerald Streets detracts severely from the amenity of those centres. Heavy traffic on East Parade, Charles Street and Loftus Street cuts residents off from community amenities, businesses and public transport. The Mitchell Freeway cuts Leederville town centre businesses off from more than half their natural customer catchment.

The City of Perth, on the other hand, benefits twice. Once by businesses getting the customers and employees they need and a second time by the City of Perth getting multi-millions of dollars in parking revenues every year.

As I used to point out, if the then Town of Vincent were able to put a 50 cent toll on each car passing through the area to or from the city, we would have been able to do away with property rates in Vincent completely. This is not fanciful - other places in the world (Singapore, London, Stockholm, Durham (at a different scale)) have these sorts of access charges - perhaps it is time for Perth to seriously consider it too.

But even in its own terms, the 'subsidising residential areas' claim was false, anyway, as the new local governments quickly found, with a lot of their infrastructure having been neglected and needing urgent maintenance or upgrades - all of which had to be paid for.