The hills are alive... on life support
The West Australian Academy of Music, a teeny-tiny music-teaching startup which has just moved to larger premises in Fremantle, is still fighting with the council over whether they'll be able to stay. The core of the red tape is that the site is zoned for semi-heavy industry, not education.
The actual issue is that the abandoned car dealership (complete with cracked tarmac, holes in the walls and barbed-wire fence) that the music school moved into is in the middle of a residential area, and is not only kind of falling to pieces but has possibly the worst sound insulation EVAR. There's been less than a handful of actual real neighbour complaints, and those are more along the lines of 'It might get noisy' rather than 'It's actually noisy', but it's enough for the council to get a grip on.
Another component of the problem is that the school is still only just out of its infancy, and has very little in the way of cash reserves. If they'd been able to just plonk down fifty grand to have the place renovated, the council would have rubberstamped them as a significant investor in local business etc. It doesn't help that they're running a collection of cardboard egg cartons to do their own ghetto soundproofing. Oy.
Yeah... in retrospect, this problem was kinda forseeable, but the school wasn't looking at it from that angle when they were thinking they'd finally get a place which had more than one room, even if it's in worse shape than Ghostbusters HQ. And the principal is getting that boxed-in, hair-tearing feeling.
I can also see it from the council point of view - these guys are unknowns, they seem to be poorer than dirt, and they're taking a run-down three-walls-of-glass shack in the middle of a bunch of local housing and proposing to make loud noises there all day and night?
Gah.
If I had the spare cash, I'd solve it by simply paying to have the place soundproofed. If I had a LOT of cash, I'd have the place bulldozed and a proper academy built from scratch - it really is a dump, and anyone from the council who visited would probably be turned completely off just by the state of the place.
Not to mention that although the principal is nice and seems to want to make this work, she's latched onto the idea of the school having its own premises (not shared or rented), and is holding onto it for grim death. Never mind that the premises in question should have been condemned. Sigh. I wonder if I could suggest holding the classes (mainly afternoon/evening, as the teachers tend to have day jobs) in the facilities of one of the local schools? At least the building would be brick, the rooms warm, the noise damped... but there's that fierce 'carve out your own space' territoriality going on. Geez - I know that having a bricks-and-mortar address can seem to lend legitimacy to a business, and that local music education in general is split between huge arts centres and home-based or housecall teachers, but I really do think they've bitten off more than they can chew here.
I wrote a letter to the council emphasising the musical history and culture of Fremantle and playing up the future that a artistic/educational establishment could help to generate and sustain in the specific council wards, but to be honest I can't see this ending well, unless the school suddenly gains either a boatload of money, a major well-known sponsor, or the support of someone with old-boy network connections on the council. Significance or a champion, in other words.
As for me, all I can do at the moment is write letters and pay tuition fees in cash, in advance.
The actual issue is that the abandoned car dealership (complete with cracked tarmac, holes in the walls and barbed-wire fence) that the music school moved into is in the middle of a residential area, and is not only kind of falling to pieces but has possibly the worst sound insulation EVAR. There's been less than a handful of actual real neighbour complaints, and those are more along the lines of 'It might get noisy' rather than 'It's actually noisy', but it's enough for the council to get a grip on.
Another component of the problem is that the school is still only just out of its infancy, and has very little in the way of cash reserves. If they'd been able to just plonk down fifty grand to have the place renovated, the council would have rubberstamped them as a significant investor in local business etc. It doesn't help that they're running a collection of cardboard egg cartons to do their own ghetto soundproofing. Oy.
Yeah... in retrospect, this problem was kinda forseeable, but the school wasn't looking at it from that angle when they were thinking they'd finally get a place which had more than one room, even if it's in worse shape than Ghostbusters HQ. And the principal is getting that boxed-in, hair-tearing feeling.
I can also see it from the council point of view - these guys are unknowns, they seem to be poorer than dirt, and they're taking a run-down three-walls-of-glass shack in the middle of a bunch of local housing and proposing to make loud noises there all day and night?
Gah.
If I had the spare cash, I'd solve it by simply paying to have the place soundproofed. If I had a LOT of cash, I'd have the place bulldozed and a proper academy built from scratch - it really is a dump, and anyone from the council who visited would probably be turned completely off just by the state of the place.
Not to mention that although the principal is nice and seems to want to make this work, she's latched onto the idea of the school having its own premises (not shared or rented), and is holding onto it for grim death. Never mind that the premises in question should have been condemned. Sigh. I wonder if I could suggest holding the classes (mainly afternoon/evening, as the teachers tend to have day jobs) in the facilities of one of the local schools? At least the building would be brick, the rooms warm, the noise damped... but there's that fierce 'carve out your own space' territoriality going on. Geez - I know that having a bricks-and-mortar address can seem to lend legitimacy to a business, and that local music education in general is split between huge arts centres and home-based or housecall teachers, but I really do think they've bitten off more than they can chew here.
I wrote a letter to the council emphasising the musical history and culture of Fremantle and playing up the future that a artistic/educational establishment could help to generate and sustain in the specific council wards, but to be honest I can't see this ending well, unless the school suddenly gains either a boatload of money, a major well-known sponsor, or the support of someone with old-boy network connections on the council. Significance or a champion, in other words.
As for me, all I can do at the moment is write letters and pay tuition fees in cash, in advance.