Hannah Fitzhardinge has spent her life in the thrall of Italian language and culture.
The Fremantle Mayor’s mother was one of Western Australia’s leading teachers of Italian and a family member owned a home in the picture-book Tuscan town of Lucca, which allowed her to spend long periods soaking up the lifestyle that’s the envy of the world.
Fremantle has all the elements of a European city ... except for bustling crowds.Credit: Mark Naglazas/iStock
It is little wonder Fitzhardinge has always lived in the orbit of Fremantle, the nearest thing we have to an Italian town – a built-up environment where you don’t need to get into a car to go to a restaurant, yoga class or a movie, where good food is an essential part of life, and an afternoon walk allows you to experience the theatre of humanity.
Despite Fitzhardinge’s love of Fremantle the port city is still not European enough for her. To be a truly European city Freo needs more people living in its heart.
And she has put a number on how many people she wants in the CBD: 10,000.
That is, lift the current population enclosed by the Parry Street boundary from its current number of 1500 to 10,000.
“It’s a big number, but why not aim high?” says Fitzhardinge, who took the reins of the city from Brad Pettitt in 2021 after serving five years as a councillor for the Beaconsfield ward.
“Fremantle has everything that people love about Europeans cities and a lot more. It has beautiful historic buildings, all the amenities are in walking distance and, for some people, they can get to work without getting into a car. And it has the river and the beach. Why wouldn’t you want to live in Fremantle?
“We are also a major transport hub. There has been a lot of talk about the importance of development around train stations, which Fremantle has. It is one of the major arguments for building up the population of the CBD. People can walk to the train.”
Fitzhardinge’s dream of filling up central Freo is not just her own. The council has been committed to increasing density since release of the 2029 Fremantle Transformational Moves document that was the result of public forums in 2013 and 2014.
Little Lane
The plan has been so enthusiastically embraced that the population of the CBD has doubled in the past decade. That kind of leap gives Fitzhardinge heart.
“We’re in an approval spirit at the moment,” she said. “There are projects all around Fremantle that are in various stages of approval and development. For example, there is huge activity along Cantonment and Point Streets. The problems of the building are slowing things down at the moment, but when all these projects are completed it will bring more people into the city. It is very exciting.”
A vivid example of a smart, attractive high-density residence in Fremantle and model for other such developments is the recently completed Little Lane Apartments on Adelaide Street, beside Target.
“Little Lane was proposed at a time when people said you can’t do apartments in Perth. But things have changed in the past few years. All 70 apartments sold quickly,” said Fitzhardinge.
“What we are discovering is that if all the amenities that people need are easy to access then people are more than willing to embrace high density living. As a council we have to provide those amenities and to make sure the environments are what residents want.
“We are now getting people moving to Fremantle from overseas where they have lived in apartments. And we believe the barriers to families living in apartments are less than people believe. We just need to provide open spaces and other amenities pertinent to families,” she said.
While Fitzhardinge is encouraging the construction of apartments in a place that has had very little of this kind of development she firmly holds they must be in keeping with the character of the city. Why allow inappropriate construction in a city that people cherish for its historical character, she says?
“It’s not just a matter of size. Taking in regard to the topography and what’s around it is equally important. You have to use a design that is site appropriate. You have to think about how it changes people’s relationship to a certain area,” she said.
Former Fremantle mayor and now South Metropolitan Greens member Brad Pettitt believes Fitzhardinge’s dream of 10,000 people living in the heart of Fremantle is not fanciful. However, to achieve it in a reasonable time she would need the support of the state government, he said.
“The state government is the biggest landowner in central Fremantle,” he said. “We have to encourage it to develop empty sites into apartments. Many have been empty for a very long time. This is crucial for populating the CBD. We just have to get it done.”
Fremantle icon Gino’s: Mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge wants to build on what already makes Fremantle so special.
“The government also has to stop enabling and incentivising urban sprawl, which is what they’ve been doing for the last decade.
“We’ve made living on the fringes of the metropolitan area very cheap and easy. We have literally built the cheapest detached houses in the world. As a result we don’t do apartments very well or very often,” he says.
“The government has to start investing in infrastructure in places like Fremantle. And it needs to get serious about its target of 47 per cent of new dwellings being built in the existing urban framework. It’s currently running at 30 per cent.”
While 10,000 seems like an unthinkable number for a smallish area there’s no shortage of space, says Pettit.
“Take the car yards on Queen Street you see as you drive into Fremantle. The reason they haven’t been developed is that running underneath are government-owned sewer lines. The government are unwilling to contribute to their relocation to enable development to happen.”
“I tried to get the property owners to pay for it, but it’s not their asset. So rather than all parties working together and moving the sewer line under the road, which is where it belongs, and open up the space for development the government has refused to budge.”
Of course, the big one is Victoria Quay, which is now ripe for development now that the movie studio has moved to Malaga. Pettitt said that alone could accommodate 10,000 people.
He said the Port Authority had spun its wheels for too long and management of Victoria Quay needed to be given to the City and state government so redevelopment could begin. The Gage Roads bar was a good start, but not an end.
“Fremantle is the jewel in the crown of our city. It is the place visitors remember. But for too long it has suffered from under-investment,” he said.
“Fremantle had a bigger population at the turn of the century that it did in the mid-1990s. As Perth sprawled it was at Fremantle’s expense. We need to take Fremantle back to what it was planned to be –a much denser, walkable and more vibrant place.”
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