Key development conflicts flare up

“If new residents think there is a problem, there is a problem.”

Those were the words of Kwinana Industries Council director Chris Oughton when he summed up the prospect of a new subdivision proposed near Alcoa’s southern metropolitan operations two months ago.

The area of concern was a subdivision cell within an area called Mandogalup.

The local council believes residential development is needed to justify and support further services for the area, but local industry is concerned that dust from the Alcoa site could prompt complaints.

That could threaten the viability of Alcoa’s existing plant, or future expansion.

The KIC has taken the issue very seriously, recalling the issues of the Wattleup and Hope Valley communities where air quality was a major concern.

Eventually, that problem was solved by increasing the existing buffer zone and developing the Latitude 32 industrial park, which caters for a lower level of industry.

The investment in Kwinana is worth tens of billions of dollars and the ability of industry to expand and meet export demand is important, especially for those who consider value adding as a vital part of Western Australia’s business mix.

Down south, at Kemerton, residential development near the industrial park has affected plans for what is one of the state’s next most important industrial areas, strategically located near the growth area of the South West and the port at Bunbury.

Property Council WA executive director Joe Lenzo acknowledges the issue of residential encroachment on industrial land is a long running one, but he points to Kemerton as a notable example.

“It is particularly bad at Kemerton,” Mr Lenzo said.

“[Residential encroachment] has had a major impact on heavy industrial growth around the Kemerton area.” “Industrial land is now extremely valuable and there isn’t enough to accommodate the expansion we have had in that area.” The residential developments around Leschenault occurred after Kemerton was created and, together with land owners around the fringe of the massive park, have stymied growth for industrial users.

While that is set to change as the state deals with the issue, the fact is there are likely to be limits placed on what industries are suitable for Kemerton because of local community concerns.

“That is where industry gets caught between a rock and hard place,” Mr Lenzo said.

“Once you have people living there you will get community outcry.”

State Planning Minister Alannah MacTiernan sees things very differently.

Ms MacTiernan acknowledges the issue exists, but believes its contemporary manifestation has changed from the traditional local residents trying to shut down the noisy factory across the road.

“I think we have managed residential development pretty well,” she said, giving credit to planning schemes devised decades before she held the reins in planning.

Ms MacTiernan is confident that Kemerton will be resolved, with the state having bought up land in the undeveloped areas that are located on the park’s fringe.

“People claimed their aspirations were being thwarted,” she said of the moves to buy the land from those neighbours to provide more certainty for the industrial park.

And, Ms MacTienan said that the issues of Mandogalup are being “worked through”.

Her biggest concern is focused on the unexpected result of careful planning for future transport corridors to the north and south of the city.

Instead of untouched land now being available for roads and railways, it is seen as green beltways, often the last remnant of bushland as the areas around it are developed.

“We have put a lot of land aside in the South West corridor which, it is quite likely, we can’t develop for industry,” Ms MacTiernan said.

“It is long-term planning that has left those areas locked up,” Ms MacTiernan said of the transport corridors.

“It is not that it is right or wrong…It is one of those inevitable conundrums.” “Community aspirations change.” But it’s not just land transport that is being affected in this way.

Only three weeks ago, the federal government refused environmental approval for the development of a fourth runway at Jandakot airport because the remnant bushland was considered too valuable to lose.

The airport had sought to clear more than 100 hectares of Banksia woodland to construct the runway, roadworks and facilitate commercial development.

But the federal Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts claimed this could harm the maintenance of biodiversity, habitat and corridor values, especially impacting two endangered species of orchid and Carnaby’s Blackcockatoo.

While such a knock-back might actually work to the advantage of the owners of Jandakot, who would like to move the airport south to Keysbrook and develop the massive site, it is a blow to the industry that operates from the busy airfield.

Jandakot is one of the nation’s busiest airports because of its pilot training schools and is also a key arrival and departure point for unscheduled business flights to regional areas.

The airport has had its issues with residential development in the past, but new owner, Ascot Capital Ltd’s director, David Van Der Walt, said the group does work hard at managing the issues that impact on the community.

“We try to fly neighbourly,” Mr Van Der Walt said.

Midland Brick divisional general manager Peter Hogan also believes that working with the community has helped the brickworks survive from considerable isolation when it started in 1946 to the current day, with housing close to its east and west boundaries.

“How it impacts on us over decades of practice is that it has forced organisations like us to work in a more responsible way,” he said.

“We strongly embrace principals of sustainable development.” Mr Hogan said this had helped Midland Brick, which is owned by Australian building products giant Boral, gain approval for a new $53 million kiln and a $33 million masonry plant.

“You don’t get that if you don’t have the support of the community,” he said.

Midland Brick did have a scare a decade or so ago when there were concerns about air quality at a neighbouring primary school.

Mr Hogan said the issues turned out to be unrelated to the brickworks, but the closure of the school provided Midland Brick the opportunity to buy the land and significantly increase its buffer zone.

He believes that residential development is also locking up raw materials such as sand and limestone, which will make it harder to access building products in the future.

It appears that protection of industry in planning has become more significant in the past decade since one of the biggest planning debacles in WA’s suburbs became apparent.

That was the development of Canning Vale as an industrial area, with the Perth markets shifted from West Perth, and a major logistics hub planned for the area.

Unfortunately, the power of residential development was proved when buyers of relatively cheap land, separated from industrial areas by only a rail line, managed to find political voice through their local member who had a marginal seat.

The outcome caused huge issues for the area, with a local ratepayers’, socalled, progress association gaining a veto over the uses for the neighbouring industrial land.

Eventually, logistics giant SCT and supermarket national Woolworths Ltd pulled out of the area and relocated because of the restrictions being placed on the area.

Landcorp business manager (industrial) John Hackett agreed that was not a good example of planning.

“We are trying to learn from this,” he said.

“In the past industrial land use planning has been basically to reserve an area in total and leave it to evolve in its own way.” He said that what was being looked at was a form of “I” coding, similar to the “R” coding of residential areas.

Benchmark Properties’ Paul Devereaux believes councils’ increasing use of caveats on land titles is helping to make sure that new residents understand the implications of living near an industrial zone or under a flight path.

“The councils are getting a bit more savvy and requiring memorials on blocks,” Mr Devereaux said.

“That helps diffuse situations.” Midland Brick’s Peter Hogan said that is helpful, but it doesn’t always cover the problem.

“It is all very well to inform people about the risks of buying near manufacturing works, but sometimes they don’t really understand until they move in,” he said.

The other extreme is keeping people out altogether, with strong buffer zones and restrictions on where development can take place, with the aim of deflecting the interest of developers who like taking risks or land buyers who feel they can change what they don’t like.

The latter group receives little sympathy, whomever you ask.

Augusta-Margaret River Shire president Steve Harrison is one who is dealing with big interest from developers while attempting to preserve the rural nature of the region.

Mr Harrison thinks the issue of impact on winemakers, for instance, is yet to really rise in the area, but he believes people have to realise what they are in for when they purchase land in a place like Margaret River.

“When people make a choice to live in a particular area they have to expect that industry, whatever that is, has to take place there,” he said.