A new City of Stirling report has criticised the findings of last September’s State Government survey which recommended a height cap in Scarborough.
A new City of Stirling report has criticised the findings of last September’s State Government survey which recommended a height cap in Scarborough.
The Data Analysis Australia critique, commissioned by the City of Stirling, of the State Government’s Deliberative Survey concluded that the analysis of the survey sample was “totally inappropriate, especially given the self selective nature of the sample”.
The City of Stirling has previously endorsed an amendment to the town-planning scheme allowing for coastal development up to 16 storeys along a one-kilometre strip at Scarborough.
WA Business News understands the amendment proposal, which has been passed to the Western Australian Planning Commission, will go to the Statutory Planning Committee within the next week.
The Statutory Planning Committee will ultimately make a recommendation to Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan, who will have the final say over the amendment.
Last year, based on the results of the Deliberative Survey, Ms MacTiernan said she would not support any development in Scarborough over eight storeys, and would back development over five storeys only with community support.
Shortly before last month’s state election Premier Geoff Gallop announced that Ms MacTiernan’s position in relation to Scarborough would become a policy for the whole of the state, provoking ardent criticism and objections from industry groups, land owners and developers.
Chairman of the Scarborough Beach Association, Geoff Counsel, said that if such a policy went ahead Scarborough would stagnate, because development would become commercially unviable.
“We are extremely disappointed with the height restriction proposed policy – a blanket policy is not the way to deal with the issue, and coastal suburbs should not all be treated the same,” Mr Counsel said.
“By restricting developers, we will lose the short-stay accommodation component, and won’t have developer contributions for public open space.
“Commercially, it simply won’t be worth them developing in the area and any chance for foreshore improvement or redevelopment will be delayed for at least another 10 years if the minister sticks by her earlier statement, which we believe she will.
“Scarborough is hosting the national surf life saving championships in 2007, and the way the foreshore is now is just an embarrassment.”
Mr Counsel said the Deliberative Survey had several major flaws, one of which was that only 101 people turned up to the workshop.
“It is not acceptable to make public policy on the views of 101 people. Our view is that this is a planning process and the minister has pre-empted the process.”
David Lombardo, whose family owns the Scarborough Markets Fair site, said if the height cap became policy the family would consider locking up the existing building and sitting on it for 10 years until the issue of development was looked at again.
“There will be absolutely no development with the height cap, and if there isn’t some thinking outside the proposed policy, nothing will happen,” Mr Lombardo told WA Business News.
“The Scarborough Environs Area Strategy (SEAS) endorsed by the City of Stirling has taken all users’ perspectives into account, and has come up with a compromise that is real.
“About 98 per cent of Scarborough Beach land is in private ownership, and people who think the land owners’ perspective isn’t important need to reassess because the private sector is a key element to the revitalisation of the area.
“There isn’t any public land to sell to fund foreshore revitalisation, it is dependent on the private sector.”
