Yesterday, we brought you the exclusive story that six years on from promising to build 5000 homes through infill developments, the state government had failed to lay a single slab.
One of the areas that has fallen victim to this delay is the old Brownlie Towers site in Bentley, which after 13 years in the planning phase, was sent back to square one earlier this year.
The plagued Bentley regeneration project has failed to get off the ground in 13 years.
City of Canning mayor Patrick Hall has just told Radio 6PR there is 26 hectares of prime government land at the site, just eight kilometres from the CBD, sitting dormant.
“Bentley has been besieged with social issues for many years, and we felt what a wonderful opportunity to change the narrative … but instead of that, not much has happened,” he said.
He said the latest idea to make one in every seven dwellings at the site social housing would also “be a disaster” after the now demolished Brownlie Towers public housing precinct became a notorious ghetto for crime.
Previously, the state government had a policy of trying to reduce public housing to 1 in every 9 dwellings, although any mention of the long-running target has disappeared from its website in recent years.
“Those areas [like Bentley] that have been shouldering the burden of social housing, and carrying the burden for many years with high percentages need to be given some relief,” Hall said, pointing to surrounding suburbs which had far less public housing ratios.
“Why we would not take the opportunity to renew that area and change the narrative just defies common sense.
“What a disappointment it is for everybody living in Bentley.”
Listen to his full interview here:
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