Above images are from Draft South Metropolitan Peel Sub-regional Planning Framework May 2015
Even though the Mangles Bay Marina proposal was withdrawn by the Minister for Planning Rita Saffioti on 1st March 2018, our Point Peron public land is still at risk of being of privatised and urbanisation by the WA State Government.
Based on publically available Department of Planning (DoP) documents we now know that:
- When the Mangles Bay Marina (MBM) proposal was on the table the Metropolitan Peel Sub-regional Planning Framework classified the MBM proposal area land as “Open Space – Nature Passive Recreation”.
- In May 2015 the DoP issued a draft Metropolitan Peel Sub-regional Planning Framework Document that proposed to change the classification of the land subject to the MBM proposal to “urban expansion”. You can find HOPP’s submission regarding the Draft South Metro-Peel Sub-regional Framework here
- In March 2018 the final version of the amended Metropolitan Peel Sub-regional Planning Framework Document showed the land subject to the MBM proposal as “planning investigation area”
Images from South Metropolitan Peel Sub-regional Planning Framework March 2018
So the DoP started out wanting to change the Pt Peron land from “open space nature/passive recreation” to “urban expansion” but (following the rejection of the MBM proposal) ended up changing the classification from “open space nature/passive recreation” to “planning investigation”.
The evidence shows that this major change was made by stealth, without any genuine public consultation let alone public support for such a change. The proposal to go from “open space nature/passive recreation” to “planning investigation” classification was not disclosed to the public, let alone supported by the public.
The Metropolitan Region Scheme amendment process in relation to the MBM proposal showed that the public overwhelmingly supports the public open space / nature based recreation classification.
It is HOPP’s view that the government had no legitimate basis for changing the status of the land to planning investigation, especially after the MBM proposal was rejected. There was/is no sound reason to depart from the longstanding “open space nature/passive recreation” designation, or to have a planning investigation that considers options such as housing or commercial development that are inconsistent with “open space nature/passive recreation”.
The MBM proposal was fundamentally flawed and should not serve as a trojan horse for some other type of tenure or development that is at odds within “open space – nature/passive recreation”.
In view of this history and given that the Cape Peron Planning Investigation has been initiated, its scope should be confined to options that fall within the ambit of “open space – nature/passive recreation”.
We are urging people who live in the City of Rockingham (COR) to email their Ward Councillors (Find your Ward Councillors and email addresses here) and request that the COR lobby the WA State Government and advocate on behalf of concerned constituents for the scope of the Department of Planning lands and Heritage’s Cape Peron Planning Investigation to be confined to the consideration of land tenure and development options that fall within the ambit of “open space – nature/passive recreation”.
