OBH owner shakes off council's feedback

The Ocean Beach Hotel owner has shaken off the council’s opposition to his proposed $220 million facelift, with the state government’s peak planning body to assess it in the coming months.

Owner Stan Quinlivan lodged his plan to revamp the Marine Parade building late last year through the state government’s State Development Assessment Unit, which will be assessed by the WA Planning Commission.

The proposal includes 204 apartments, a 121-room hotel and 11 food, beverage and commercial tenancies across three buildings with a maximum height of 12 storeys.

Town of Cottesloe council reaffirmed its planning officer’s recommendation to strongly object to the proposed $220 million redevelopment of Ocean Beach Hotel at its meeting last night.

Mr Quinlivan said he hoped a decision would be made before the end of June.

“All the advertising period finished yesterday, now it goes to the planning commission and they’ll write a report,” he said.

“(Feedback) has only been positive.”

Part of the council officer’s recommendation includes requesting the developer for monetary contribution in the event the proposal is approved.

Mr Quinlivan said consideration of the developer contribution should go through the process the government had put in place.

“It’s the planning commission who decides, they (council) just oppose everything,” he said.

Cottesloe mayor Lorraine Young said despite Mr Quinlivan’s comments, the council was pro-development.

“We actually want his project to go ahead but it has to be consistent with the local planning scheme,” she said.

“We want something amazing on that site but we just want it to comply on the scheme, height, bulk and scale.

“We certainly want developer contribution included … the increased intensification of the site is going to require public open space.”

Ms Young also said the council voted to advise the proponent to revise the hotel being pushed to the back of the development.

"They could rethink the internal layout so the hotel offering optimises the tourism outcome," she said.

"If (hotel visitors) are stuck at the back, it's much less appearing ... that is not going to have year-long tourism."

The Quinlivan family teamed up with David Hillam, through Edge Visionary Living and Hillam Architects, for the design.