Joondalup City Council believes the northern city is at a turning point and action is needed to address the long term supply and productivity of its zoned employment land.
Joondalup City Council believes the northern city is at a turning point and action is needed to address the long term supply and productivity of its zoned employment land.
The council believes attracting more commercial office, residential, retail and hospitality investment to the Joondalup CBD, bringing more local employment as a result, has become critical to the city’s long-term sustainability.
To that end, it has recently released an Economic Development Plan for public comment, which targets three main streams of economic development: the expansion of current service industry strengths; the growth of office-based professional service industries; and the emergence of smart industries from the Joondalup Learning Precinct incorporating TAFE, WA Police and Edith Cowan University.
The plan also outlines several development opportunities in the area, including LandCorp’s proposed 34 hectare Southern Business District on the corner of Joondalup and Hodges drives, a marina at Ocean Reef and various public and private lots within the CBD.
Joondalup mayor Troy Pickard said the city was the “satellite city” for WA, but this was currently not reflected in its built form or economic activity.
“All its fundamentals are in place. We’ve got a wonderful education precinct, the best shopping centre in WA and great public transport. All the pieces of the jigsaw are there, we just need to lift it to the next level,” Mr Pickard told WA Business News.
The plan lists Joondalup’s current industry strengths as city centre retail, education, health and community, which provide almost half of the city’s jobs.
However, the city markedly lacked professional services players including government administration, property, business services, finance, insurance and services to the resources sector, the plan said.
Mr Pickard believed the lack of commercial office space was a real weakness in the CBD, and a solution could be found in reducing barriers to business activity such as unrealistic parking requirements in new developments and inflexible zoning rules under its planning scheme.
“In the early days people were using tilt ups and if they wanted concessions they would get them easily,” he said.
“We’re paying for those mistakes now. We want to reverse that and over a five to 15 year period, re-jig some of the built form here.”
“The land value in Joondalup is such that investment in multi-storey commercial office space is now viable from a developer’s perspective. We want to look at eight-storey, 10-storey and 12-storey buildings in the CBD and create some intensity with the mix at street level.”
Joondalup was even considering reconfiguring some of the roads in the CBD to encourage more development to occur, he said.
While not intending to take on the development work itself, the city has identified six sites in the CBD which it owns, where there could be opportunities for public/private partnerships in commercial, retail and entertainment projects.
Mr Pickard said the development of the Ocean Reef Marina, a new Cultural Centre near ECU and the revitalisation of the CBD were the three landmark projects that would shape the city in the next 30 years.
Also on Joondalup’s wishlist is an eco tourism resort on Lake Joondalup with a hotel, day spa and conference facilities.
For the marina, the city will embark on four rounds of public consultation over the next 18 months, before forming a structure plan for the project.
“The process started 10 years ago and got too hot to handle. This time we’re going in with a blank piece of paper and asking people for the do’s and don’t’s and forming a community reference group. They want something special and not another Hillarys.”
Other proposed developments included the expansion of the learning precinct with the construction of a $23 million Motor Industry Trades Association training facility for 550 students within the Southern Business District, and a Police training facility for international recruits in partnership with West Coast TAFE.
