Port Hedland: $79m housing plan for BHP

Facility operator Compass Group plans to add hundreds of rooms in a $79 million expansion of a Port Hedland accommodation, to house workers of BHP’s port debottlenecking project.

The group proposed to add 301 rooms at the Waypoint Village workforce accommodation, formerly known as Mia Mia Port Hedland, on Lot 9008 on Great Northern Highway.

The redevelopment has been estimated to cost $79 million, according to a Department of Lands, Planning and Heritage document.

There will be 553 rooms at the facility with the proposed addition, set to house BHP staff working on the port debottlenecking project.

Compass Group’s development application, prepared by CLE Town Planning + Design and lodged with the Town of Port Hedland, said BHP expected the project to be completed by March 2028.

“The project will commence in the second half of 2024 and is intended to expand and debottleneck BHP’s Western Australia Iron Ore’s port capacity by developing an infrastructure and operating solution that will reliably and sustainably deliver a growth pathway to an iron ore production capacity of about 330 mega-tonne per annum,” the application said.

“During the operational peak of the project, BHP have forecast the need for 400 to 450 rooms at Waypoint Village to accommodate employees and contractors from the project.”

The application will be determined by the Regional Joint Development Assessment Panel.

Compass Group sought a fresh approval for the entire Waypoint Village site.

“In doing so, the application seeks a ten-year approval timeframe for Waypoint Village, which would effectively supersede the current approval for the existing 252 rooms under [previous approval] which is due to expire in 2026,” its application said.

The shortage of affordable housing in regional WA, particularly in the Pilbara, has been well documented in the past year.

“The existing supply of workforce accommodation within Port Hedland has been assessed and determined insufficient to accommodate the additional demand generated by the project,” Compass Group’s application said.

“With housing supply in Port Hedland having grown by less than 0.2 per cent per annum since June 2017, the current shortage is expected to be further exacerbated by an increasing number of non-permanent workers coming to and from Port Hedland.

"Presently, BHP and other parties are unable to secure consistent accommodation for its workforce, resulting in workers having to demobilise and fly back to Perth.

“Expanding Waypoint Village as proposed will respond efficiently to this identified demand without creating an additional workforce accommodation site, thereby utilising existing infrastructure consistent with strategic decision-making regarding the location of these uses.”

The town has also proposed to build a 75-dwelling workers’ village that it expects to reduce the accommodation shortfall by about 10 per cent.