Developer beware? Just how bad are land deals at City of Canning?

Affordable Housing, Affordable renting, Bentley Regeneration project, Brownlie Towers, Dept of Communities Housing, Graham Barry, Housing Authority, public housing, Sara Saberi, Sunlight Properties, Sunlong Constructions Pty Ltd, Sunlong Corporation, Sunshine Developments WA P/L, Sunshine Light Property, Sunshine Light Property Pty Ltd, Yaso Ponnuthurai, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

THANK YOU to Canning Times for publishing info that gives an idea of how concerning things have become at the much-investigated City of Canning – this time, and once again, in relation to the near-billion dollar Bentley Regeneration project.

One land plot, all-income affordable housing, 12 parks, buses running through centre – density done best… but only if we get it right….

The Times revealed Canning’s CEO, Arthur Kyron, had a temper tantrum at the end of a Special Council Meeting on 24 Jan 2018, bursting out with “good on ya, council…. stupid decision!” when a bid to revoke a decision to defer, until February, any debate on his recommendations to council for yet more negotiations over the Regen failed.

Record keeping has become a joke at Canning*, so it’s not surprising Kyron wasn’t aware his fluff had gotten out via audio recordings of council meets.

Why did the CEO flip out?  He claims it was because the staff had done so much work and he felt frustrated at not being able to move ahead, but the reality is it has been the staff of Canning, not the council, who’ve been behind shockingly poor negotiations and land deals, relating to the Regen, over the last five years.

Now the majority of councillors want more time and more info to consider a new way forward, including the only councillor with in-depth experience, Graham  Barry (recently voted back in) and new councillors Yaso Ponnuthurai and Sara Saberi.

Two more issues of concern emerged:

  1. Councillors have been ringing around (developers, MPs, Ministers) in order to have enough info to feel confident voting on a project of considerable magnitude
  2. For some reason Minister for Housing, Peter Tinley’s Chief of Staff rang the City to express dissatisfaction that council hadn’t voted through what the state seems to think it should

(You might want to keep No. 2 in mind. Rumours abound this is indicative of how things may go under the McGowan Govt, ie, the role of councillors lessened, with more direct contact occurring between CEOs and Ministers….)

So many things have gone wrong in the grand plan to finally prove density can work on a large scale in Perth, and with Canning having experienced such a high turnover of staff and governance in five years perhaps it comes down to the residents who actively engaged in the year-long Bentley Regen consultation – do they possess the most knowledge of all?

I’ll ask around!

Image used designed by OpenClipart-Vectors (image no. 27445). Sourced from Pixabay.  CC0 Creative Commons.  https://pixabay.com/en/catastrophe-comic-characters-2028623/  Red dialogue box is an alteration added by Diana Ryan, CanningAccountability

*Record keeping on the latest motion to council per Bentley Regen, since 19/12/17:-

1) Unconfirmed Minutes of Ordinary Council Meeting of 19 Dec 2017 don’t specify in the index that a motion on the Bentley Regen project was put to council under confidential cover. It had dropped off in its travels from Agenda to meeting/minuting.  Minutes will not be confirmed, and hopefully index corrected, until 20 Feb 2018.  This remains all that is listed as at today’s date:
City of Canning unconfirmed ordinary council minutes of Dec 2017
2) Audios of the Special Council Meeting and Annual Electors Meeting, both held 24/1/18, were incorrectly labelled when put up on City website
3) CEO Kyron’s comments on council’s decision at the Special Council Meeting of 24/1/18 not discovered for some time; corrections made at that point
4) What will become the Confirmed Minutes of Special Council Meeting of 24/1/18, relating to the Bentley Regen, currently up on City’s website as “Unconfirmed Minutes of SCM 24 Jan 2018” merely contains the words “Debate on the revocation motion ensued. The Mayor then put the motion”. It details none of the questions and concerns raised by councillors as they moved to vote,

 

2 thoughts on “Developer beware? Just how bad are land deals at City of Canning?”

    1. I’m disappointed with the City’s website today, actually. You were on the right track – on the Agendas and Minutes page, look for the Legend of what the acronyms for the council meetings mean (as below, to be found mid way down page on the left, in a box) and then look for the line immediately underneath (recreated below). At the end of that line it directs you to the Audio recordings page, which the City, for what I can only assume are risk-adverse reasons (the audio is far closer to a true and accurate recording of the deliberations of a council meeting than the typed Minutes), requires you to go through a permission slip page to access, then you can click on which meeting you’d like to hear the audio of:-

      Legend
      OCM Ordinary Council Meeting
      ARC Audit and Risk Committee Meeting
      AB Agenda Briefing Meeting
      AME Annual Meeting of Electors
      SME Special Meeting of Electors
      SCM Special Council Meeting

      In the event that you are unable to locate agenda or minute papers, could you please customer@canning.wa.gov.au and we will make the documents available to you. To listen to the audio recordings from the Council Meetings, please click here.

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