Hindsight is a wonderful thing according to Canal Rocks chairman David McKenzie, who has become the public face of a 22-year controversial campaign to develop land at Smiths Beach, South of Yallingup.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing according to Canal Rocks chairman David McKenzie, who has become the public face of a 22-year controversial campaign to develop land at Smiths Beach, South of Yallingup.
The principal of Claremont real estate group Olifents says in hindsight he would not have engaged now disgraced lobbyists Brian Burke and Julian Grill in 2005 to help progress the project, but did so out of “sheer frustration” with the state government and the Shire of Busselton at the time.
“We felt, like in excess of 50 other WA companies at the time, that by engaging their services that we could at least get to a stage where we would be getting a fair hearing. And we weren’t getting a fair hearing,” Mr McKenzie told WA Business News.
However, it was at a very different hearing in late 2006 that the Corruption and Crime Commission heard amongst several allegations, that Messrs Burke and Grill had channeled money from Canal Rocks into the campaign coffers of seven Busselton council candidates.
Mr McKenzie said the pending CCC report into the Smiths Beach hearings was completely separate from Canal Rocks plans for the $330 million Smiths Point development, and he hoped the public would judge the project on its merits.
Having taken public comment on board to date, the developers have reduced the original 28 hectare development footprint to 21 hectares.
The plan includes 272 tourist accommodation units, 104 residential homes, 100 hotel rooms, backpacker lodge, camping ground and 1,700 square metres of commercial space, alongside 19 hectares of native bushland and public open space.
Mr McKenzie was approached to purchase the 40 hectare block at Smiths Point by its owner in 1985, and quickly formed a syndicate of 27 associates to fund the acquisition, of which 26 are still involved with the project.
Planning commenced for development of the area in the mid 1980s before Smiths Beach was nominated along with Bunker Bay, Yallingup and Hamelin Bay as ‘tourist nodes’ under the government’s Leeuwin-Naturaliste Ridge Statement of Planning Policy.
Smiths Beach development plans followed in 2000 and 2005, which both met with passionate opposition from sections of the public, who considered the plans out of scale and character with the area.
Mr McKenzie believes the new plan conforms 100 per cent to the overarching planning policy and if successful, would become an important community and tourism hub.
The Shire of Busselton’s public submission period closes at 5pm on October 22.
