City of Bunbury to host information session for Tree Street residents

Tree Street residents will get to chance to speak “openly” with council next month, with the City of Bunbury announcing an information session to discuss its controversial heritage area proposal. It comes as many Tree Street residents descended on the council meeting last week to express their concerns, with 14 people listed to ask their questions of council, along with a crowd of concerned locals. Last month, the council voted to send its proposal to create a heritage area within the Tree Streets locality to public consultation — drawing many residents to asks questions regarding their concern for the proposal and its associated local planning policy. The motion proposes to identify the area bound by William Street/Beach Road to the south, Wattle Street/Irwin Street/Picton Crescent to the west, properties along Sampson Road to the north, and Oakley Street to the east, as a heritage area to preserve the history of the properties within. After being flooded with questions and concerns from impacted residents, City of Bunbury Mayor Jaysen Miguel announced the City’s intent to host a community forum on August 8, to encourage open conversation between residents and the City. “There hasn’t been a huge uptake of conversations with our staff, so that’s why we want to encourage it,” he said. “There’s been questions on individual properties and every single property is going to be different . . . so we’re very much encouraging individual owners to speak to our staff to get the information they need. “This is a public consultation period and that’s why we go out for public comment to make sure we’ve got things right. “We’re not putting anything in place, we have to test the market and we can’t test that without having a document . . . it may be wrong, it might be right, we’ll work our way through that and make sure we have the correct information.” The meeting will take place at the City function rooms on August 8, from 6:30pm.