Our next speaker is Kellie McGivern. Kellie is a UK-registered architect who's experienced in the Australian, Irish, and European construction industries. She's a design manager at Hisperia and is involved in a number of infill projects in and close to Curtin. She's a residential committee member of the Property Council of Australia in WA and a member of the State Design Review Panel overseen by the WA Department of Planning, Lands, and Heritage. Kellie's going to speak to us tonight at a project level, addressing features of good infill by reference to some of the developments she's familiar with. Thanks.

Good evening, everyone. I believe I've got Peter to thank for being here tonight. We all got the train today from Fremantle, so thank you very much. Infill—I've called my presentation actually "Infill" because I think all infill should aspire to be good. The way to do that is as developers. I work for Hisperia, a developing company, and what we need is a diversity of thinking when we approach these developments. Development isn't designed on a spreadsheet, and that's a critical thing that we need. Hisperia recognizes that. I'm an architect by background, so cities are what I love, and that's my passion. Josh and Peter spoke about their history before. You can recognize that I'm not from this place, and therefore I also recognize that we pay our respects to the First Nation peoples on the land that we are here today.

But also, my history really started in Ireland. I studied in Glasgow and was there for two years before going to live in Vienna and Barcelona. We were always taught in university that to do this job, you need to travel. You need to experience cities and what a city means. So, my training and the start of my career was about how to create opportunities within cities. Where I come from, they put a belt around development called the green belt, and you can't develop outside of that belt. But here, we tend to just keep going further and further. The critical thing, the way that as developers, we look at opportunities is to look at opportunities that are deemed too hard for other people to do. We also look at existing infrastructure because, for development, to build new road networks, new footpaths, get water, get electricity to all these places, plumbing, that costs more money than actually just infill. If you can also create infill, you don't have to sell the story to other people. People live there; they've grown up there; they want to be there. You're not selling the vision. People already get it, and they understand it. You're not creating these sterile places for people to live in.

So, I'm going to take you through three projects, one of which is just recently completed: Victoria House in Shenton Park, Leederville Development, which is still on the drawing board, and Midland Reserve. Victoria House, which is not too far from here in Shenton Park, is part of the Montario Quarter development run by Development WA. For us, we look at projects from the first principles to see what are the opportunities within that. This location ticks a lot of boxes because you're 6 km from the beach and 6 km from the CBD. It's another location that people really want to live in. It's beside good transport systems, which Peter talked about, and that's so critically important. It's only 400 meters from the train station. This slide shows Montario Quarter as its initial master plan, and you'll notice Victoria House, which was built in the late 1800s as a hospital for infectious diseases. In the master plan, that site was contained and assumed that it could only have very small-scale development, a refurbishment of the existing heritage building, and maybe some townhouses could fit around it. But we saw that as an opportunity for an extension to the heritage building.

I've got some aerials which show a little bit of what you can faintly see—the overlay of the Development WA lot and in yellow, the Victoria House. That was it as its original fabric. The land was repaired, and the lots were aligned. We approached this project to say that only 50% of the building is worth retaining and that the rear part could be developed. With that came opportunities for some basement car parking, so the density could be increased. This shows the demolition before the redevelopment of the three wings, as it were, of medium-scale five to six stories. This is it completed, with the heritage building at the heart of it. We approach buildings looking at the opportunity of what stories they have existing and how we can integrate that narrative and culture into a place. These are historical buildings, almost like artifacts that people have memories and attachments to. You don't want to create sterile environments; you want things that people can hold on to.

Victoria House was quite interesting because, at the time, the average two-bedroom was about 90 sqm, and we looked at this as an opportunity to say, "We need to look at it from another frame. Let's have 105 sqm apartments." With that extra space, people could make that leap and say, "I don't want to live in a small, tiny apartment." You want to have a little bit of generosity in space. We ended up getting people who lived within a 5 km radius coming to Victoria House, which highlights that people want to live in the suburbs they grow up in. They don't want to have to move to the fringes. With that comes sustainability from its grassroots because that's the sustainability of communities. Growing up beside each other, knowing your children and grandchildren are all within close proximity. We also had a widespread cohort, from young professionals to the over-55s, which is unusual because a lot of people buying into these apartments in this area tend to be of an older demographic looking for a lock-up and leave. This appealed to young people because we were offering something different with the hospitality around the grand plan. It offers hospitality where you can have your coffee, pick up provisions, and have a drink in the evening. It's a full spectrum of the day, with a heavy amount of green space around it. It's 400 meters from a train station, so there's an easy commute into the city. It has high diversity on the site, with townhouses, apartments, and group dwellings, offering that mix. You see the sustainability of communities with a mix and diverse amount of community from young children to the elderly, which is really important.

Interestingly, at the time, we were selling these apartments for $440,000 for a one-bedroom. In today's rate, we were selling those apartments at $7,500 per sqm. Today, it's $10,000, $12,000, or $15,000 per sqm, so that affordability line is changing. We all have a part to play in creating more diversity and being smarter about projects to make that leap to what is affordable.

Next, Leederville. We won this through a competitive bid with the City of Vincent. They had two underutilized car parks in Leederville, public car parks, and sought out a competition for a proposition to utilize those car parks, create activation, integrate into the existing network, and have an offer for the value. We've got a diverse mixed-use precinct, looking at how we can create those connections on an urban scale in walkable cities. All three examples I'm showing tonight have common themes about walkable distances. In Perth, compared to other Australian cities, we don't tend to want to live in the CBD. People want to live in the suburbs. Part of that is probably about getting to know people, having that sense of identity and familiarity in the local aspect, knowing people in the local vicinity. Being able to walk is really important. Josh, Peter, and I were talking about needing that at both ends of your life. When I was a parent for the first time, wheeling a pram, it was too hard to get into the car. I wanted to just lay the sleeping baby in the pram and walk onto public transport. As we age, we want to be able to walk places. Being out in the fresh air and meeting up with friends keeps people connected, which is critical.

At Leederville, we've got three sites: Frame Court, offering office and parking and community facilities for the City of Vincent; Avenue North, with commercial office and a supermarket; and Avenue South, with a BTR residential component, 22 stories of residential in a transport node and major development area. When we first look at a project, we try to understand the sense of place. With good urban infill, we're not in the business of doing cookie-cutter stuff. It's about what is unique to this place and how it integrates and fits in. Good infill should frame that uniqueness. The interesting thread between these three projects is that they're all well-supported by infrastructure—road networks, bus routes, and train stations, with an easy commute to the city. This slide shows a breakdown of how we're looking at the street networks and the 24-hour life cycle of these buildings and places, ensuring they become safe places for people to live and inhabit. Our cities are made up of daytime and nighttime activities, creating safer cities. This view shows how the space could look, with a proposed supermarket. We need places where we can shop, pick up provisions, meet friends and family, work, and live. That's what makes dynamic cities—places where we can all inhabit and access infrastructure and green space. Having places where you can meet in the park and recreation is probably why we tend to want to live in the suburbs. The city is a hard place with limited public open space, but our suburbs are rich and green. That's all the ingredients needed for a successful and happy living experience.

Lastly, Nedlands. This is a five-hectare site in the heart of Nedlands on the old Regis retirement living site. It's been locked off to the community, almost like an inner-city site. It's a huge urban block, and we saw this as a potential to really develop. Nedlands is a green, leafy suburb, supported by rich public infrastructure with hospitals, primary schools nearby, and UWA only 2 km away. You can see it highlighted in orange, right next to the Karrakatta Cemetery. Lots of green space with ecological links, critically important. What is there now is an urban desert, a sandpit in the middle of Nedlands. We're planning on planting over 200 trees, not including the streetscape around it that we'll also be replanting. The premise of this development is set around public open space. We looked at this as a place for everybody. This site has been locked off to the community for many generations, and the opportunity is to open it up, not just for the people who are going to live there but for everyone to come. Transport and walking routes through the site are important, looking at the longitudinal section with green space from Kings Park and urban links from Hampton Road through the development.

There's transport and traffic issues at Monash. We recognize that and are looking at how to slow the traffic down, not creating a thoroughfare that becomes an issue for the existing community. This highlights the sandpit on the site and the overlay of the green space and public open space in the middle, with heavily greened streetscapes, critical for enjoyability and traversing the streets. Landscape is the most critical thing on this project, offering a mix and diversity of use. We've got townhouse lots, small lot residential designed with laneway access, taking cars off the main street, ensuring they're all leafy, green, and well-presented. There are higher-density apartment options, some medical mixed-use, and small hospitality. Like our other projects, we'll look at the build form, which hasn't been designed yet, but the small lot residential has been designed around the medium-density code. We used five different architects to help mold the streetscape, ensuring we get a good design outcome. We'll have an internal design review panel before people can actually submit those designs to the council.

Thank you, and I look forward to continuing the conversation.