HUNDREDS of landowners near Lake Coogee, Mayor Rise and Thompson’s Lake may be prevented from developing their properties under legislation before state parliament.

Local Labor MP Fran Logan says they are being shafted by the Barnett government.

This week premier Colin Barnett  introduced a bill to create a buffer zone around the Kwinana and Latitude 32 industrial areas. Development inside the zone will be effectively banned.

Mr Logan says a large parcel of land to the east of Lake Coogee had been flagged for exclusion, pending a decision by the planning minister, but now it’s been scooped up inside the zone.

“I have been fighting this issue ever since I have been the member for Cockburn,” the fired-up MP told the Herald.

“I was successful in getting $120 million to be spent on reducing the odours from Water Corp’s Woodman Point sewerage plant, and now the Kwinana Air Buffer Zone should be reduced, not increased.

“This is just an outrageous land grab by the Barnett government, orchestrated by the Kwinana Industries Association and Liberal MP Phil Edman.

“If it was their land being sterilised by an act of parliament, we would never hear the end of their bleating.”

Mr Logan says he met with planning minister John Day on Wednesday and was assured the decision was still pending.

However, maps produced by the WA state development department are clear: the land is inside the zone.

The department, which is driving the legislation, argues it’s not increasing the buffer, simply strengthening it through legislation.

In a fact sheet issued with the WA planning commission, it complains too many councils and developers ignore the existing buffer plan because it has no real teeth.

The Herald noticed several new residential developments in Cockburn are within the buffer, which was first flagged in the early 1990s before being officially endorsed by the WAPC in 2010.

Those developments include Mayor Rise and a large area north east of Lake Coogee where about 300 families now reside.

The buffer also takes in hundreds of semi-rural areas surrounding Thompson’s Lake.

The Herald has previously reported those areas have been earmarked by the WAPC for potential industrial use, much to the annoyance of Cockburn council.

by STEVE GRANT