Bunbury mayoral race: Candidates pitch more parking, city living & 5-star hotel among big ideas to boost CBD

A five star hotel, new university and big name brand store in the CBD are among the raft of new projects mayoral candidates promised for Bunbury as they went head-to-head in a one-off debate last week. Eight of the 10 candidates in the running for the top job had their chance to pitch to the public at the Bunbury Geographe Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Meet the Mayoral Candidates event on Thursday. The night saw Capel Shire president Michael Southwell, Bunbury City councillors Amanda Yip, Jaysen de San Miguel, Michelle Steck, Tresslyn Smith and Cheryl Kozisek and local businessmen Gabi Ghasseb and David Kerr put to the test as they tried to win the community over and answer testing questions. At the core of all campaigns was a desire to help Bunbury reach its full potential, with many candidates saying the city was “on the cusp” of something great. In his opening address, Mr Southwell said Bunbury did not achieve its potential and had so much to offer visitors if marketed correctly. This was echoed by Mr Kerr’s push for better destination marketing and Mr Ghasseb, who cited CSIRO and Stanford University research that named Bunbury as having the best climate in the world to work, live or play (along with San Diego, California) — something that should be capitalised on. When asked for their one idea to liven the CBD, the focus ranged from parking to events and residential accommodation. Mr Southwell pitched to remove “free ticketed parking” from the CBD — an initiative council is removing in coming weeks by introducing new sensor-based parking. Ms Smith said she would “spruce the town up” and tidy the street up to encourage visitors. Ms Kozisek said the city lacked a “major drawcard” to attract people to the centre. “That major drawcard may be a big name store... we need some big drawcards and we need the shops full,” she said. “We have an incredibly interesting retail shopping strip and we need to make sure it stays that way.” Having a drawcard was one step, but council needed to drive it in a way to encourage investment in the city, Mr Miguel said. “Rather than spending money on a big drawcard, we need to say ‘OK, how do we invite things to happen here’, whether that’s incentivising development... reducing red tape. “Encouraging outside investment rather than the city going and doing it is going to be what generates (investment) and part of that will be getting inner city living.” Mr Ghasseb said aside from attracting a leading university to the city, increasing residential accommodation around the CBD was a key issue. The same went for Ms Yip, who said more residential development would help activate the CBD and attract more people to Bunbury. “We need to reach a critical mass of people living in the city that can support all the great bars and restaurants that are there... then you have a neighbourhood and you have people who want to come and visit because it’s active,” she said. Mr Kerr said the decider was getting more foot traffic in the city by short term and long term ideas, such as developing the night-time economy. Ms Steck’s key idea was to develop the South’s car park into a multi-storey car park or a new event. She also pitched bringing a five-star hotel to Bunbury. Another major issue of the evening was addressing Bunbury’s homelessness crisis — an issue each candidate said they were keen to help solve. Candidates Betty McCleary and Alfred Leigh did not attend.