Moves to fast-track big urban renewal projects across the Perth-Fremantle metropolitan area foreshadowed by Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan will not mean the wholesale sidelining of local governments.
Moves to fast-track big urban renewal projects across the Perth-Fremantle metropolitan area foreshadowed by Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan will not mean the wholesale sidelining of local governments.
A spokesman for Ms MacTiernan said local governments would be participants in the streamlined process the Gallop Government was intending to create.
The minister has been testing the water on creation of a new and expanded renewal and planning authority by briefing industry representatives about her intentions.
The spokesman said local councillors would be involved in the fast-tracking agency in the way that a City of Perth councillor had sat on the East Perth Redevelopment Authority.
Ms MacTiernan, a former Perth city councillor, is known to be unsympathetic to costly delays and ongoing hold-ups that council delays can and do inflict upon the development process.
According to Property Council WA executive director Joe Lenzo, ministerial briefings on the new agency and its likely powers suggested a Western Australian Redevelopment Authority (WARA) would emerge by consolidating the East Perth, Subiaco, Midland and Armadale redevelopment authorities.
Ms MacTiernan is the member for the seat of Armadale.
Mr Lenzo said the minister had indicated she was considering two options, one that embraced the four redevelopment authorities and another that also incorporated LandCorp. He believed one of the proposals was likely to be before cabinet within weeks.
Mr Lenzo said the Property Council’s members believed Ms MacTiernan’s proposal was long overdue.
“It’s not before time that this coordinated approach has emerged and we would be fully supportive of this belated initiative,” he said.
“Moreover, I believe local government authorities should embrace it enthusiastically.
“The concerns local government authorities have been telling developers they have is their lack of resources and expertise when it comes to consider major redevelopments that are proposed for their areas.
“A larger cabinet-backed coordinating agency would have those necessary resources and expertise.”
A spokesman for Ms MacTiernan said it was still too early to make hard-and-fast comments about the streamlining plan.
“The minister has briefed some people but nothing beyond that has happened,” the spokesman said.
If LandCorp is subsumed it would become an associated specialist unit within the proposed WARA and would undertake feasibility studies in the way it is presently doing to bring about the modernisation and transformation of the Bunbury Outer Harbour.
The present controversy over hold-ups to the planned Perry Lakes stadium proposal is currently the best known project that a more broadly based redevelopment authority could oversee and fast-track.
But Perth and Fremantle have a number of equally obvious areas that can be rejuvenated and modernised.
Mr Lenzo said central Claremont, including the railway station precinct, and immediately adjacent properties, including the Claremont Football Club’s oval and the showgrounds, were all candidates for major long-term renewal.
The Royal Agricultural Society has considered its options in relation to the showgrounds several times in the past decade.
Another precinct likely to be an early candidate for renewal is the huge swath of coastal land directly south of Fremantle.
Its redevelopment would require participation by councillors from the Fremantle, Rockingham and Cockburn Councils, Mr Lenzo told WA Business News.
