In response to increasing industry concern about Western Australia’s industrial land shortage and the equitable delivery of lots onto the market, the state’s most significant land holder, LandCorp, has spoken out about the pressures of current demand and
In response to increasing industry concern about Western Australia’s industrial land shortage and the equitable delivery of lots onto the market, the state’s most significant land holder, LandCorp, has spoken out about the pressures of current demand and its efforts to plan for the future.
LandCorp business manager John Hackett said the agency was the first to admit it was surprised how far the cycle has gone in taking greater stock than what the government had available.
“We’ve all been surprised by the length and strength of this whole cycle, we didn’t expect it to go on for so long,” Mr Hackett told WA Business News.
“We are working hard to address the issue of shortages, but the reality is LandCorp is treated as a developer like anyone else.”
Over the next few months, the government will release a further 46 lots to the market across the metropolitan area, ranging in size from 1,000 square metres to 3.7 hectares.
By targeting certain estates to fast-track land, it hopes this will go some way to taking heat out of the market.
Mr Hackett said industrial estates took time to come to fruition because of the required approvals process.
“When you first buy the rural land, you must go through re-zoning, then environmental clearances, as well as putting capital infrastructure in place, meaning you could have a 10 year project,” he said.
In terms of gridlocks, Mr Hackett said its ability to time the environmental clearances with the Department of Environment’s annual surveys in spring, as well as the need for long-term water monitoring, was not meeting other department time frames, causing a degree of slippage on the release of lots.
He stressed that DOE had an important job to do, but in constraint situations where people wanted land here and now, the required clearances sometimes made short-term demand difficult to address.
Aside from the timing issue, there was a perception amongst industry that the government was currently favouring the delivery of smaller lots onto the market to maximise returns, and leaving out the provision of larger lots of between three and five hectares.
LandCorp believes it has a role to deliver land to meet the needs of industry, and a greater demand for smaller lots had warranted this strategy.
Mr Hackett said he expected more large lots to be released once an expression of interest process was completed later this year for precinct one of its Hope Valley Wattleup industrial project, between Rockingham and Fremantle.
The 1,426ha estate is expected to provide the area with industrial land, including larger lots for the next 30 years, particularly for transport and logistics operations in the south-west sector.
In Perth’s north, the government is working to fast-track the delivery of 210ha out of a total 1,000ha at its Neerabup estate, in the City of Wanneroo.
Sub-division design, including a range of lot sizes, will be submitted to the WA Planning Commission later this year, with pre-sales to begin by mid-to-late 2007.
Master-planning these estates and others, including Cockburn and the Australian Marine Complex, was high on the government’s agenda to improve synergies between businesses, provide common infrastructure and improve social amenity in industrial areas.
Mr Hackett expects demand to be strong over the next three years and said the government was in a good position to supply land in both metropolitan and regional areas through this period and in the long-term.
