Mr Griffiths is a councillor at the Heritage Council of WA, sits on the City of Subiaco Design Advisory Panel and this year won the Gerry Gauntlett Award for heritage adaptation.
He also consulted for D2 Property during early heritage assessments in 2011.
‘First of all, I am relaxed about this development in cultural heritage terms because there is no heritage value and therefore nothing worth saving on this site,’ Mr Griffiths said.
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READ NOW‘We do need to look after our heritage buildings and streetscapes, but the only way to achieve that is to add in contemporary buildings that have all the right ingredients and are sympathetic to the area.
‘Subiaco needs something of this intensity to revitalise it.
‘As a Subiaco local, I can see that the more people we can have living and spending time and money in the city, the better quality businesses, lifestyles and street atmosphere there will be.’
Mr Griffiths said there was undue concern regarding the 16-storey apartment building at the back of the site.
‘As the shadow diagrams show, most of the shadow would fall south on Hay Street office buildings for very brief periods and not impact residential (properties),’ he said. ‘You will never be able to hide a tall building in the long-view, such as from the top of Rokeby Road.
‘However, as you get closer, the buildings around the bottom drastically reduce that impact.’