On Wednesday night the Shire of Mundaring unanimously approved EastCourt’s plan for five-acre lots on 190 hectares in North Parkerville,a plan in line with the rural residential zoning the shire is trying to regain.
Save Perth Hills protesters in the Supreme Court gardens ahead of a tribunal hearing last month.Supplied
This deals a fresh blow to the 33-year fight by Australia’s biggest private land developer,Satterley Property Group,and its business partner,WA’s Anglican Church Diocese,to develop a sprawling 1000-lot town site in North Stoneville in keeping with the area’s existing ‘urban’ zoning.
EastCourt’s original 1990s urban plan proposed up to 740 lots for 2000 people.
The revised plan is for just 67 five-acre lots as well as even larger lots for 200 people,with firefighting tanks on every site.
Following the council decision,the WA Planning Commission will make the final decision in about six weeks.
Debra Bishop,deputy chair of the Save Perth Hills group which has fought the Satterley plan,applauded the move.
“The developer’s decision to overturn their 1990s plan for a rural residential approach recognises the Hills’ 21st-century bushfire dangers,reaffirms the semi-rural amenity of this region,and severely undermines the planning viability of[the Satterley plan],” she said.
“North Parkerville will have no need to share costs,or use North Stoneville’s major infrastructure,including a wastewater treatment plant,as Satterley had intended.
“It’s time for Satterley and the Anglican Church to demonstrate humility,surrender their doomed urban aspirations,and spare ratepayers and taxpayers massive cost burdens of appealing inevitable rejections.”
But made it clear in the State Administrative Tribunal that Satterley would not abandon its pursuit of a housing estate in North Stoneville.
Satterley has been attempting to establish the site on 535 hectares owned by the Perth Anglican Diocese,since the church recruited him in 2016 to develop 1000 lots to house 2800 people,three schools and a 193-hectare conservation area.
was underpinned by a 1200-page report from the state’s planning department claiming it still provided inadequate technical traffic impact and bushfire data.
Satterley’s tribunal appeal of this latest rejection is yet to have a date set. The appeal will be held in public.
The shire has been moving to down-zone the area from urban back to rural residential for some time,lodging rezoning applications for North Stoneville with the WA Planning Commission in 2020. No government agency objected and the rezoning proposal remains on the commission’s desk.
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