PROPERTY investor Frank Teissier says Melville council’s “micro-managing” of the Canning Bridge Activity Centre Plan threatens to rob him of the chance to develop three properties he purchased for more than $6 million.

Mr Teissier said he and other investors are frustrated they brought their properties after researching what was permitted under the existing plan, only to find the rules are about to change and potentially undermine their investments.

In his case, bonus heights along Forbes Road where he purchased three adjoining properties would drop by two storeys, while set-backs and changes to the ground floor podium will also have an impact.

Mr Teissier said he’d always planned tall, slender buildings to fit the shape of his properties, but the council’s changes would make them so skinny they’ll no longer work.

“It’s so frustrating,” Mr Teissier said.

“Before you make the investment decision, you get the advice from the council and you have a look at the Canning Bridge plan, and you base your decision on the information you receive and what’s been printed.

“And then that changes on the flip of a coin within a short period of time.”

He had plans drawn up which now might never see the light of day.

Mr Teissier said the five-storey bonus heights currently available on his property were ratified by the WA Planning Commission in 2020.

“And now we’re in 2022 and they’re proposing to reduce that from five to three – a micro change.

“It’s frustrating because you want to provide to the community some really good, cool architecture; because you do tall and slender.

“But what’s the difference between 13 and 15 [storeys]?

“Once you’re here and you look at 13 and 15, you can’t tell the difference, so why micro-change – it makes no sense.”

Mr Teissier said other investors are telling him they can no longer trust council documents or information.

But they’re also querying why their properties are being adversely affected, when the council would be one of the beneficiaries of increased heights proposed along Moreau Mews where it owns a couple of blocks.

by STEVE GRANT