Kardinya is a suburb south-southwest of the central business district of Perth, the capital of Western Australia. Located in the City of Melville local government area, it is predominantly a low-density residential suburb consisting of single-family detached homes. There is a commercial area in the centre of the suburb, with a shopping centre and several other shops. In the northwest is a small light industrial area. Kardinya has a population of 8,730 people.
Before European settlement, the area was inhabited by the Beeliar group of the Whadjuk Noongar people. Kardinya did not attract any interest from Europeans when the Swan River Colony was founded in 1829, as it was far away from any river and infertile. European use of Kardinya began in 1870 when fourteen lots were allocated to Pensioner Guards. These lots were used for piggeries, poultry farms and vineyards. In 1904, a large amount of land in the area was set aside as endowment land for the University of Western Australia. In the 1920s, this land started to be used as a pine plantation, known as the Applecross Pine Plantation, and, after 1947, the Somerville Pine Plantation. The suburb was formally gazetted on 16 June 1961. From 1967 to the early 1980s, suburban development occurred in Kardinya.
Current amenities in Kardinya include Kardinya Primary School, North Lake Senior Campus, Kardinya Park Shopping Centre, and Morris Buzacott Reserve, which is home to several sports clubs. The suburb is quadrisected by South Street and North Lake Road. Transperth bus services operate, most feeding into Murdoch railway station on the Mandurah line.
History Before British colonisation Before European settlement, the area was inhabited by the Beeliar group of the Whadjuk Noongar people, who had lived there for 40,000years. They lived in the area south from the Swan River down to Mangles Bay near Rockingham and east to the Darling Scarp. No specific sites of Aboriginal occupation have been found in Kardinya as there are no wetlands there, however, the Beeliar people would have passed through Kardinya.
British colonisation Kardinya attracted no interest from the British when they founded the Swan River Colony in 1829. All settlement was concentrated along the Swan and Canning rivers as they were the main method of transportation in the early decades of the colony. Kardinya also had no fertile soil for the crops and fruit trees grown at the time. Only one section of land in Kardinya was part of the early land that was granted to settlers; it was known as Cockburn Location 549; none of the Kardinya section of that land was used.
In 1870, fourteen smaller lots were excised from Cockburn Location 549. Over the following fifteen years, they were allocated to Pensioner Guards – British army veterans who received a pension after having completed their period of service or been wounded. They served on convict transportation ships to Western Australia. Their role in the colony was to help maintain law and order, and serve as a presence of authority towards the convicts. To ensure the Pensioner Guards stay in the colony, they were allocated land which they had to occupy for seven years before they could gain ownership. Convicts were forced to clear the land for the Pensioner Guards. These Pensioner Guard lots were passed down to their descendants. At the beginning of World War I, most lots were still owned by descendants of Pensioner Guards.
Two roads were built in the early 20th century – South Street, which ran from Fremantle west of Kardinya to the eastern edge of Kardinya, and North Lake Road, which ran from Canning Highway north of Kardinya to Bibra Lake in the south, continuing as Forrest Road to Armadale. At first, these roads were just cleared tracks consisting of sand, but after World War I, they were laid with planks.
During the early 20th century, these lots were used as piggeries, poultry farms and vineyards. The remaining area was Fremantle Commonage, meaning residents of Fremantle could freely cut timber. This changed in 1904 when an act of the Parliament of Western Australia set aside the land north, west and east of the Pensioner Guard lots as endowment land for the University of Western Australia (UWA), which was being planned at the time. The university did not end up using the land, but in 1922, it asked the Forests Department to police it for the illegal removal of timber.
In 1924, the Bibra and North Lake Progress Association asked UWA and the Forests Department if part of the land could be used as a pine plantation. They agreed to the land being used for that purpose for 50 years. In 1926, of land was cleared, and planted mainly with pinus pinaster (maritime pine). At a high point on South Street, a house for plantation staff was built, and a fire lookout was built on a nearby tree. A second lookout tower was built in 1965. There were never any large fires at the plantation, but several smaller ones were spotted and put out over the years. Initially, the plantation was known as the Applecross Pine Plantation, but it was renamed to the Somerville Pine Plantation in 1946, after William Somerville, a prominent person at UWA, being acting vice-chancellor, pro-chancellor and acting chancellor at times. Many streets in Kardinya are now also named after prominent people from UWA.
The trees in the plantation began to mature in the late 1950s, with harvesting commencing then. The largest trees were removed first, allowing the others to grow further. Clearcutting began in the 1960s as Kardinya was planned to have a housing development. This finished in 1975; the university sold most of the land to developers. The south-eastern corner, just beyond Kardinya's boundary, was used to make Murdoch University, Perth's second university. Some trees were left standing, which can still be seen today.
Suburban development The area was originally named Ellis, after Ellis, a long time secretary of the Melville Roads Board. The name "Kardinya" was first suggested as a street name in the area in 1955. The name is of Aboriginal origin. Some sources say it means "sunrise", whilst others say it means "place of the Karda (racehorse goanna)". Later, a vote was held for residents to decide between Ellis and Kardinya as the name for the suburb. Kardinya received all but one vote. The suburb was formally gazetted by the Department of Lands and Surveys on 16 June 1961.
In 1958, seven residents requested permission from the Melville council to subdivide their land, however others opposed this, wanting to retain the area's rural character. The opposers wanted no block to be smaller than , and so the request was denied. Plans for housing development in Kardinya's north-eastern quadrant began in 1960. On 5 October 1967, first building approval was given, and development of the north-eastern quadrant began. The south-eastern quadrant was developed in the 1970s, followed by the south-western quadrant. North Lake Senior High School opened in the south-western quadrant at the start of 1973, a shopping centre opened on the north-east corner of South Street and North Lake Road in 1976, and Kardinya Primary School opened in the north-eastern quadrant at the start of 1977. The Kardinya Precinct Committee (KPC) was formed in the early 1970s, and renamed the Kardinya Residents Association in the late 1970s. This association was heavily involved in the development of Kardinya, providing input for planning schools, shopping centres, bus routes and community services. The final quadrant, the north-eastern quadrant, was developed in the 1980s.
During the early 21st century, many 1960s and 1970s houses have begun to be demolished for further subdivision.
Geography and nature Kardinya is located south-southwest of the central business district (CBD) of Perth, the capital of Western Australia, and east of the Indian Ocean. It covers an area of , and is bounded to the north by Garling Street, North Lake Road and Somerville Boulevard, to the east by Prescott Drive, South Street and Windelya Way, to the south by Farrington Road, North Lake Road and Winterfold Road, and to the west by a high-voltage power line. To the north is Willagee and Winthrop, to the east is Murdoch, to the south is North Lake and Coolbellup, and to the west is Samson and O'Connor.
Kardinya lies mostly on Spearwood dunes, which formed around 40,000 years ago. The dunes consist of brown sand lying over yellow subsoil, with Tamala Limestone below. The limestone is close to the surface in parts. A small area on the eastern edge of the suburb lies on Bassendean dunes, which consist of white to grey sands formed between 800,000 and 125,000 years ago. Both are part of the greater Swan Coastal Plain. Whilst Kardinya does not contain any natural wetlands, North Lake is located immediately to the east of the suburb.
The area's original vegetation would have been a forest consisting primarily of Eucalyptus gomphocephala (tuart), with Eucalyptus marginata (jarrah), Corymbia calophylla (marri), Banksia attenuata (slender banksia), Banksia grandis (bull banksia), and Casuarinaceae (sheoak) interspersed. Smaller trees include black wattles and two species of stinkwood, and other plants include zamias and grass trees/balgas. No rare species are known to have been in the area. Small amounts of the original vegetation were cleared by early settlers in the 19th century and early 20th century to make way for homes, raising animals and vineyards, but most of it was cleared in the 1920s for the pine plantation. A small area of natural bushland remains as Harold Field Reserve, although it has been invaded by weeds that hinder small native plants. Arctotheca calendula (capeweed) is a common weed in the area that was purposefully introduced. Other weeds were introduced accidentally, including Eragrostis curvula (African lovegrass), Ehrharta longiflora (annual veldtgrass), Polycarpon tetraphyllum (fourleaf allsead), Romulea rosea (Guildford grass), Trifolium campestre (hop clover), Euphorbia peplus (petty spurge), Carpobrotus (pigface), Plantago major (plantain), Lolium (ryegrass), Oxalis pes-caprae (soursob), Sonchus arvensis (sowthistle), and Ursinia.
Demographics Kardinya's population has been on a slight decline from 2001 to 2016. The suburb was home to 8,730 people according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics's 2016 census, compared to 8,794 at the 2011 census, 8,874 at the 2006 census, and 8,935 at the 2001 census. At the 2016 census, 49.6% of residents were male and 50.4% were female. The median age was 41, which was above the state and national averages of 36 and 38 respectively.
At the 2016 census, 75.7% of Kardinya households were families, above the state average of 72.7%; 19.5% were single-person households, below the state average of 23.6%; and 4.8% were group households, above the state average of 3.8%. Of those family households, 40.0% were couples without children, 44.0% were couples with children, 13.4% were single parents with children, and 2.7% were some other type of family. These figures are all close to the state averages of 38.5%, 45.3%, 14.5% and 1.7% respectively.
Out of the suburb's 3,523 dwellings, 3,197 were occupied and 326 were unoccupied at the 2016 census. Out of the 3,197 that were occupied, 2,772 were detached houses, 311 were semi-detached, and 105 were flats or apartments. 57.6% of occupied dwellings had four or more bedrooms, and the average number of bedrooms was 3.6, which was above the state average of 3.3. The average number of people per household was 2.6, which is the same as the state average. 1,375 dwellings (42.9%) were owned outright, significantly higher than the state average of 28.5%. 1,098 (34.3%) were owned with a mortgage, compared to the state average of 39.7%; 654 (20.4%) were rented, compared to the state average of 28.3%; and 77 (2.4%) were other or not stated.