ANALYSIS – Carol Altmann

[box]Update: a recommendation for a permit to be issued, subject to conditions, will go before the Warrnambool City Council on Tuesday, April 7. If you wish to have a say, contact the councillors directly.[/box]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] A [/dropcap] quick quiz: how tall is the Warrnambool War Memorial? And how many storeys is the Lady Bay Resort?

The answers will follow shortly, but you can rest assured that neither are as high as the monolithic, nine-storey apartment complex proposed for a small, prime piece of land on the corner of Merri and Gilles streets that takes in views right across Lake Pertobe, Lady Bay, and beyond.

The $20 million project by Baybern Developments, whose director is the founder of Midfield Meats, Colin McKenna, intends to squeeze 51 apartments – including three exclusive penthouses – into a complex that will tower almost 30m (28.6m) in to the air.

By way of contrast, the war memorial angel stands 10.9m, the townhouses opposite Cannon Hill are about 12m (three storeys) and the Lady Bay Resort, which some of us are still recovering from, is around 20m (five storeys).

This proposal, if approved, will leave them all in the shade.

And while Tract Consultants*, who are acting on behalf of Baybern, keep referring in their application to a seven-storey complex, it is quite clearly a total of nine-storeys (including two ‘basement’ levels), that will be hard to miss.

This is high-density housing on a scale never before seen in Warrnambool, let alone in an area that is a stone’s throw from the heritage precinct of the former court house, post office and police station. Even the house right next door to the development, Colern, has been recommended for heritage protection.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]he Warrnambool City Council is acutely aware of the need to get city planning right, not just for the citizens of today, but to ensure we don’t screw it up for those who will call Warrnambool home in the future.

As such, it has invested a huge amount of time, energy and money (on consultants and in public consultation) on creating a roadmap known as the Warrnambool City Revitalisation Structure Plan 2012 which, in theory, sets out guidelines for how the city centre should develop over the next 20-25 years.

It is an inspiring document, full of wonderful images and packed with possibilities to again make the CBD the beating heart of our great, seaside city while also maintaining its unique character.

But the Warrnambool Apartments project, as it is known, is the first real test of whether this plan is worth the paper it is written on, and the signs are not encouraging.

Here are just a few examples:

Firstly, the plan recommends a limit of five storeys for this particular part of Merri St, provided it can also “suitably transition” with what is already in the area and doesn’t “prejudice the established scale and character”.

Despite this, the revised project recently submitted by Tract in response to feedback from council officers and objectors remains at nine-storeys, while also wrongly claiming that the nearby TAFE building is four storeys (it is three).

Second, the council plan lists as a key objective its support for “medium density” housing in the CBD. By its own admission, Tract describes the Warrnambool Apartments as high density.

And lastly, but no less importantly, the council plan highlights the beautiful Norfolk pines around our city centre, describing them as “iconic” and “unique”, yet the Warrnambool Apartments will involve ripping out two semi-mature Norfolk pine growing on and near the Gilles St/Merri corner. (In an Orwellian-twist, Tract promises one tree will be replaced with another Norfolk pine or a similar species.)

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] W [/dropcap]e are not privy to the discussions between Tract and the council’s officers, but surely – if the council is serious about its strategic plan – it would have run a red line right through the initial proposal and sent Tract back to the drawing board.

But no. Not only did the nine-storey plan make it to first base, it has made it to second, with the revised plans showing very few, significant changes at all.

Yes, some balconies have been removed, and there has been a lightening of the colour scheme, but whether it is painted blue, grey or gold, it is still almost double the number of storeys of what should be there.

And let’s be clear: the reason it has remained this way is the penthouses.

Levels 5 and 6 are “sub penthouse” levels, each of five, no-doubt-spectacular, apartments.

Level 7 – the top floor – is the cream of the crop with just three, exclusive penthouses.

So the top three levels will provide 13 dwellings for the 13 couples or individuals who can afford them, while another 38 apartments will be clustered below.

It is enough to make any council salivate – the thought of having dozens of rateable properties where previously there was only one – but this is where good planning must prevail.

Nobody is arguing against more inner-city housing, but this monumental over-development – if approved – will set a dangerous precedent for Warrnambool that will destroy the very things the council’s plan is designed to protect.

*As an aside, “tract housing” – which has nothing to do with Tract Consultants – is a style of housing known for its cookie-cutter approach in which “multiple identical or nearly-identical homes are built to create a community”. It is particularly prevalent in parts of the US.

 [box]Disclaimer: Mine is among the seven objections lodged for this proposal. References used for this piece include the planning application lodged by Tract (PP2014-0162) and the Warrnambool City Revitalisation Structure Plan 2012 which can be downloaded here. [/box]

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You can find more Analysis pieces here…

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“Dysfunctional” council beats a rubber stamp

The thinking behind building A Big Life: Michael Barling & Sean Kenny

Harris mural a lost opportunity to take a stand

Your letters

Words and photos by Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] W [/dropcap]hat is it about the humble backyard hen that makes normally clear-headed people so clucky?

It often starts out innocently enough: a family decides to rescue a few chickens from an egg farm, or buy some pullets from the poultry auction, but within weeks -if not days – there is a transformation.

Facebook updates start to appear about feather growth and egg shapes, together with snaps of lovingly made chicken coops and, in the ultimate sign that the chickens now rule the roost, a list of their names and developing personality traits.

Even US author Alice Walker (The Color Purple) has fallen under their spell, producing a 2012 memoir in which each of her hens rates a mention in the title: “The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories: Glorious, Rufus, Gertrude Stein, Splendor, Hortensia, Agnes of God, the Gladyses, & Babe: A Memoir“.  Now that’s a title!

Eric Walsh, from Purnim, understands the appeal and, 12 months ago, joined the flock of those charmed by chickens and confesses he now owns “too many” hens, guinea fowl and quails.

“You can spend half an hour watching chickens and it changes your whole attitude,” he explains.

“It takes you from work-mode to relaxed-mode in a flash. You just have to make sure that you scrape your boots before you go back inside or the stress returns in a flash,” he laughs.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] E [/dropcap]ric was among the capacity crowd at last week’s Helmsman Poultry Auction at the Warrnambool Showgrounds hosted by the Warrnambool and District Poultry Club which attracted a record 232 pen count.

Among those also squeezed between the cages of Isa Browns, Plymouth Rocks, Barnevelders silky bantams and swizzles, was a mythical Crazy Chicken Lady – in this case also known as Chris Dance, from Camperdown – who has more than 150 chickens free ranging on her 1400 acre property.

“It’s in my blood. My father was the crazy duck man and I am now the crazy chicken lady,” she smiles, adding that she bought her specially printed polo shirt online.

“And yes, I do talk to my chickens. I have a good old talk to them while I am rounding them up for bed at night.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] O [/dropcap]f course you don’t need to have 150 chickens to fall under their spell: the fastest growing group of poultry fans are those who buy three, four or five to suit an urban setting.

“A lot of people are going back to the days of having chickens in their backyard,” says poultry club committee member Jackie Harry, who also runs a poultry breeding business that specialises in Barnevelders, Wyandottes and French Wheaten Marans.

“They make such rewarding pets, are easy to look after, and kids can be involved in collecting the eggs, which not only teaches them where food comes from, but about the lifecycle,” Jackie explains.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] M [/dropcap]ichael Duggan, who on the back of demand recently transformed his Warrnambool business from reptiles and poultry supplies to purely poultry specialists (West-End Hens), believes the egg factor is critical.

“Chooks are a pet that keeps giving,” he says, “they give something back for the time and money that is put in”.

Michael adds that chickens are also little workhorses around a garden, pecking at bugs and aerating the compost, but there is no denying that many owners grow to love them simply for being chooks.

“I have five chickens and I see them as livestock, but I know a lot of people see them differently – they pick up their chickens and cuddle them – and they just love watching their chickens go about their day,” he says.

[box] Michael’s answers to five quick questions about chickens:

1. Is there always a pecking order in a hen house? Yes, and some people try to intervene. It is best to let them sort it out.

2. Best breeds for laying? Isa Browns, Hyliners and Australorps

3. Best chickens for children? Silky bantams

4. What is the average life span of a chicken? Four to eight years and they can lay eggs for their entire lives.

5. Do all roosters crow? Yes, eventually, and this is why they are not permitted in suburbia, but you can always buy a cock collar*. (*A story for another day.)

[/box]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]his deep affection extends to caring for hens that were once housed in commercial egg farms – part of the response to an increased awareness of animal welfare – and a preparedness to spend money on chickens who fall ill or who no longer produce eggs.

“I think a lot of people buy chickens because they want eggs, but then it changes and, even if they stop laying, they end up keeping them for other reasons and become very attached to them as pets,” Michael says.

[box type=”download”] Thanks to West-End Hens (Norfolk Plaza, Warrnambool), we are offering one lucky Bluestone subscriber a free 20kg bag of Eggs 4 Sure, Backyard Layer Grain Blend. Email us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au by April 10 to be in the draw (and feel free to attach a photo of your ‘girls’.) [/box]

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[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] T [/dropcap]he hamlet of Casterton is again celebrating its links to one of Australia’s most inspiring early women artists, Clarice Beckett, with an art prize named in her honour.

The Clarice Beckett Art Award is organised by the small but vibrant arts group, Artists of the Valley, which “stumbled across” the connection between Casterton, west of Hamilton, and Clarice several years ago.

The event is held to coincide with the annual Casterton Kelpie Muster, that draws hundreds of people to the town from across the district and beyond on the Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend (5-7 June).

A main prize of $500 is on offer, with a $50 prize for all other sections including oils, acrylics, watercolours, mixed media, works on paper, 3D and a youth award (under 18). Artists can enter as many categories as they like, with a fee of $5 per entry.

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] C [/dropcap]larice Beckett was born in Casterton on 21 March, 1887, to a bank manager, Joseph Beckett, and his wife, Elizabeth, both of whom Clarice would spend most of her adult life caring for after they retired to Melbourne.

It appears Clarice spent only her earliest years in Casterton, having been sent to boarding school in Ballarat and, later, moving to Melbourne where she took drawing lessons at the Melbourne Gallery School under the guidance of Frederick McCubbin and Max Meldrum.

While Clarice held exhibitions with her fellow students at the Melbourne Gallery School, very few of her works sold during her lifetime and it was only many years after her death, at the age of 48, that her work was “rediscovered” and celebrated for its excellence.

Unfortunately, however, by the time her work came to be appreciated, hundreds of her paintings were beyond repair – having been stored in an open-sided barn in rural Victoria for more than 40 years. A further 31 were destroyed in a house fire.

It is this tragedy, and the belief that all budding artists deserve the opportunity of a “fair go”, that inspired the Artists of the Valley to establish a prize in her name in 2012.

[box]Entries for the Clarice Beckett Art Award close on Friday May 22. The exhibition of works opens at the Casterton Bowls Club on Friday June 5. For full details and entry forms, visit the Artists of the Valley website here.[/box]

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By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] G [/dropcap]rowing up as a dyslexic kid in Rendelsham, South Australia, Casterton artist Collin Tenney spent most of his school years in sheer terror – unless it was art class.

“I would sit there stressed out of my brain that the teacher was going to ask me to read aloud and of course nobody wanted to know the dyslexic kid, but when it came to art class, everyone wanted to sit next to me,” Collin laughs.

In one of those often inexplicable counter-balances, Collin’s limitations with words – which continues to this day – was more than made up for by an artistic streak that emerged when he was just a toddler and began drawing on the walls of his childhood home, “much to the frustration of my poor mother.”

As a young man, art became his solace, his spiritual centre and a crucial way of communicating with the world.

“I ended up working in Queensland and that’s where I started taking lots of painting classes because if I was going to learn about making art, it had to be through tutoring rather than through reading books,” Collin says.

“That was when I was around 23 or 24, but unfortunately after that, life started to get in the way with mortgages and all of those other commitments that move you away from your art.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]he pendulum swung back toward the paintbrush when Collin moved to Casterton in 2007, a town that he knew only vaguely but felt a deep connection to after driving through on his return to South Australia after looking at a property in Winchelsea.

It was shortly after the death of his younger sister from breast cancer and Collin was determined to start living the life that he always wanted.

“I felt this incredible connection to Casterton, like I had been there before,” he explains.

As Collin was passing through the historic town (popln 1765), a song played at his sister’s funeral came on the radio and although he burst into tears, he felt it was another gentle push toward making the leap.

It proved to be the right choice.

In the seven years since, Collin has not only returned to painting with a renewed vigour, but has been among several artists driving the small but growing local art scene around Casterton.

Now, for example, there is an Artists of the Valley group that includes Collin and other award-winning artists like painter Julie Kent, printmaker Jenn White and warm glass artist Darryl Tresize (winner of the Drysdale Festival of Glass prize in 2014 and 2015).

Casterton will also see the opening of a new community art gallery – the Gorman Gallery – on April 25 after the building was donated by local real estate agent Peter Gorman.

“There were all of these people out there doing their own thing with art and now we are all supporting and helping each other, while also building an arts community in Casterton,” Collin says.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] I [/dropcap]n 2012, Collin bought the former CFA shed at nearby Sandford and opened his own studio, the Sandford Red Door Gallery, named for the fire-engine red door that came with the building.

“I love this gallery, I just love the space. It is an incredibly spiritual place for me, where I am doing what I love,” he says, “it is also a place I share with other artists, through classes, galleries and all sorts of functions.”

One of Collin’s great inspirations is the late Margaret Olley, not only for her exceptional art, but her eccentric personality and he has produced several portraits of the artist, including one that took out the 2013 Clarice Beckett Art Award in Casterton (see separate story on the 2015 Clarice Beckett Art Award here). Collin plans to complete a collection of 12 “Olley’s”, as he calls them.

“When I first studied portraiture, I hated it, hated it, hated it and then I did a big work of Margaret Olley and I don’t know, something shifted,” he says.

The Clarice Beckett is one of several art prizes Collin has won in recent years, including the overall prize for the 2015 South-East Art Society’s Open Art Award, held at the Riddoch Gallery in Mt Gambier, for his landscape depicting a typical Casterton scene during the dog trials.

“My subjects keep changing and nobody is ever quite sure what I am going to do next, and sometimes neither am I,” Collin says, laughing.

[box]The Sandford Red Door Gallery is at 6027 Portland-Casterton Rd, Casterton and is open Sundays, but please call (03) 5581 2559 to confirm. You can also find more examples of Collin’s work on the South West ArtAtlas here. Entries for the 2015 Clarice Beckett Art Award close on May 22. You can find full details in our story here.[/box]

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ANALYSIS – Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]T [/dropcap]here was a headline just begging to be written a fortnight ago and it would have read something like this: “Cr Ermacora votes with rogue councillors!”

Or maybe it should have been this: “Shock move: Cr Sycopoulis abandons faction!”

Because despite a sense that the Warrnambool City Council is hopelessly divided 4-3 between two opposing factions who can never see eye-to-eye, they do.

And they sometimes agree on the most surprising and controversial of issues, such as in the case of Cr Jacinta Ermacora voting with the supposed “rogue” councillors Peter Sycopoulis, Brian Kelson and Peter Hulin to refuse a permit for a 2km sewerage pipeline to be built by Midfield Meats from its rendering plant to an existing sewer pit.

This was a significant decision in terms of Midfield Meats – one of the most successful and powerful companies in Warrnambool – being able to press ahead with its plans to upgrade the rendering plant which sits in the heart of a sensitive environmental zone because, when it was first approved 40 years ago, nobody cared about such things. They do now.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]A [/dropcap]n hour later, in the same meeting, Cr Sycopoulis stepped away from his supposed rock-solid faction and voted with Crs Ermacora, Askew, Neoh and Gaston to preserve the controversial Rolf Harris mural at the Lighthouse Theatre.

He didn’t have to, they had the numbers, but he did it because that is what he believed should happen.

In other words, both Crs Ermacora and Sycopoulis voted on principles rather than politics and this is exactly as it should be, and it happens more often than you think, but the dramatics that are also part of the current Warrnambool City Council gain much more attention than these occasions.

And nobody is denying that there is conflict and drama, borne from frustration, ideological differences, wrong-doings (perceived or proven) and lapses in leadership, but this is what happens when seven, very different individuals are elected to represent the many different people that make up our city.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]W [/dropcap]orking in the media in the past 26 years, I have sat through literally dozens of council meetings in various parts of Australia and watched them transform from stuffy, ultra-formal and dull gatherings made up of mostly businessmen keen to push private interests, into dynamic, diverse forums where not only the councillors are engaged, but the people.

To see the Warrnambool City Council chamber packed for council meetings is a victory for democracy.

And to see our elected officials made up of men and women from different cultural backgrounds, ages, political leanings and occupations is also not only a victory for democracy, but a big beautiful breath of fresh air.

Even if we don’t agree with everything they do or say – should we? – every councillor has to be admired for, as US writer Bréne Brown calls it, stepping into the arena, because that arena is very public, very demanding and, at times, bruising, and that is why most people remain on the sidelines.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]W [/dropcap]hat I don’t understand is why our robust, vibrant and, yes, occasionally dramatic council is considered dysfunctional?

It is in good financial shape and surely it is far less important that councillors sit down and have a convivial meal at the end of each meeting, than it is for important issues to be dissected, debated and thrashed out in public.

Judging by his recent statements, newly elected MP and former Moyne mayor James Purcell is among those who claim our “dysfunctional” council could stop jobs growth in Warrnambool because it has had the temerity to question the building of an enormous milk processing plant and cold storage facility by Midfield Meats in Merrivale.

Midfield’s plans are passing through due process and the elected councillors are doing exactly as they should: watching that process unfold while also listening to the hundreds of people in and around Merrivale who have concerns about the single greatest change to their neighbourhood in decades.

Leaving aside for one moment the handful of jobs that will actually be created by this expansion, surely a council is not elected to be a mere rubber stamp for developments and developers?

If so, they should be more rightly described as corporations, not councils.

The day our councillors start to fall silent on the significant issues within our city is when we really need to begin to worry, not when they are making too much noise.

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