Practitioner’s Perspective: City of Subiaco

One of the outstanding industry partners’ presentations at the recent CRC for Water Sensitive Cities Partners’ Workshop in Perth was that by Melanie Davies and Giles Pickard of the City of Subiaco, who shared their city’s numerous success stories of vegetating the urban fabric.

Melanie Davies is the Coordinator of environmental projects at the City of Subiaco and has worked at the city for over four years after coming to local government from Private industry. Melanie is an Environmental Scientist enthusiastic about our local environment and is keen to implement projects that support and protect it, while educating our local community on its importance.

Giles Pickard is the Environmental Project Officer / Landscape Architect at the city. Giles has been with the city for two years after coming from a background working in both local government and private practise. Giles has a passion for environmental sustainability, urban greening, edible landscapes and great design in general. He believes that landscape architects play a crucialrole in bringing disciplines together to achieve the multifaceted outcomes that the program sets out to achieve.

The combination of an Environmental Scientist and a Landscape Architect makes for a broad skill set for the team which allows us to take on a large number and variety of projects, many of which relate to the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities. The teams projects are backed up by a strong environment and corporate strategies developed with community support and backed by strong policy. Some of the projects underway are briefly explained below.

Green corridor development. Areas where revegetation and urban greening works are to be concentrated have been identified so that these areas may act as wildlife corridors throughout the city. The team is working with the engineering department to see how these green corridors may also become ‘blue corridors’ with water directed into these areas which will support the ‘green’ element.

Verge development program. The city offers one of the best verge management and development programs in the country. While limited it does allow for residents that successfully apply for verge redevelopment to have a bobcat prepare the area for planting with the removal of couch grass and addition of good quality topsoil suitable for planting. Subsidised native plants as well as subsidised landscape design advice are also offered. The city has developed a number of demonstration verges to showcase native verge gardens to the community.

Streetscape adaptation. Flush kerbing, swales, infiltration areas, native verge and a well developed tree canopy all play a part in adapting our streetscapes to be water sensitive, climate resilient and encourage a healthy community.

Public Open Space adaptation. The city is being proactive in adapting our public open space to not only use less water, but also to cater for the higher use POS now receives due to increasing urban density, smaller block and backyard sizes and increased public expectations. The newly redeveloped Dom Serra Grove is a great example of this with low water use plantings, permeable surfaces for infiltration, espaliered fruit trees, solar energy and more.

Urban Forest management. The city views the trees it manages across the municipality as an urban forest and manages it accordingly. Tree-lined streets provide many benefits such as cooling, walkability, stormwater amelioration, clean air, pollution amelioration and energy use reduction. Tree protection, retention and overall enhancement of the urban forest are supported by strong policy with a minimum of one tree per property verge where possible. Australian Standards for protection and management of trees are being implemented with the aim of making this standard practise for business all units involved with works that may affect trees. The team is looking forward to the CRC for Water Sensitive Cities heat mapping to identify hot spots and justify increased tree density and possible budget increases to support this.

Water harvesting. A trial of a water harvesting system was installed in Rosalie Mini Park in 2012. The system is being monitored to determine its effectiveness in providing the irrigation needs for the park.

Community gardens. The city has developed a guide for residents to initiate community gardens in Subiaco. A policy supporting the development of such gardens was also developed by the team and passed by council in 2012. The city is supporting a number of community gardens across the city that have been developed on private properties but are communally managed and are keen to implement a community garden in an area of public open space.

Vertical gardens. Knowing that this concept is being implemented in WA without many systems being suitable for WA conditions the city wanted to trial a system to test its suitability and sustainability for the WA environment. Working with local landscape company Deep Green who have developed a system for local conditions the city’s trial garden was installed in November 2012 and thrived over Perth’s hottest summer. The system also trialled ten species of local native plants, the first of its type, all of which are performing well which shows great hopes for the use of WA flora in such systems including green roofs.

Green roofs. The city is staying in regular contact with a local firm trialling green roof systems and plants suitable for Perth’s climate, with a suitable location for a trial site is also being investigated. If the trials are deemed successful, the city hopes to be able to further promote the uptake of this technology for developments within the municipality.

Water quality and urban water management. The city regularly tests the quality of its water sources and receiving bodies as well as installing gross pollutant traps, swales and other elements to assist with improving the water quality across the city.

Student scholarships. These are offered by the city to support research into water quality and wetland fauna such as long-neck turtles and macroinvertebrates for areas that are the cities receiving water bodies. Other city supported studies are looking at gross pollutant composition and quantity. Partnerships have been developed with Central TAFE, UWA, Murdoch university to support and continue this research.

Community education. The city sees that it is essential that the local community be educated about the programs that it is implementing in order to receive their support when implementing on ground works and for the funding required from council to implement these works and programs. Community education is undertaken through a number of means from the hosting of workshops, informational signage installed around demonstration projects and the regular promotions of the city’s achievements or new projects in the city’s monthly newsletter distributes to all residents in the municipality.

Interdisciplinary approach. The most important aspect of the work being carried out is the involvement of multiple departments and stakeholders for multi benefit outcomes. The team works closely where possible with the parks, engineering and infrastructure teams to develop and implement innovative and best practise projects to lead the community and the local government sector by example.