IN North Freo “you can’t buy an apple” or purchase a “pint of milk”, but you can expect a six-story development even more imposing than plans suggest, say locals.

Consultation has recently finished on a 77-unit development proposed by Adelcap Properties Pty Ltd for the now-empty Black Truffle site on Stirling Highway next to the historic Rose Hotel.

But business owner and resident architect India Collins believes architectural drawings of the proposed co-living apartments didn’t show the full impact of the building and worries people might have been lulled into letting it slide through without comment.

• North Freo has lost its deli, but might get this 77-unit co-living apartment complex.

“A tower of this height and density will create overshadowing, overlooking, and will dominate the heritage streetscape along Alfred and Thompson Road,” Ms Collins said.

She supports increased density along rail corridors, but said the shift in the building’s scale should have been more gradual, as the central tower is twice the height of the Rose.

Also leaving a sour taste in residents’ mouth has been the loss of the Truffle deli, meaning the nearest groceries are a drive across the bridge – all through the disruption caused by road closures.

“There’s nowhere to walk to grab milk [in North Fremantle],” Ms Collins said.

Grocer

The site, zoned as a neighbourhood centre, would benefit from a “shop-top housing development” with a grocer on the bottom level and 2-3 residential stories above, she says.

This would keep it in scale with the Rose Hotel and provide “much needed amity to the neighbourhood without the negative impacts”.

Long-time North Freo resident Kat told the Chook lack of knowledge might also get in the way of people lodging objections.

“I think the most surprising thing was after reaching out to a few neighbours in the area and asking ‘have you submitted’, a lot of people didn’t know,” she said.

“Only those in the immediate vicinity of the development were notified”

“A the end of the day the area should be a commercial sort of setting, a shopping sort of setting, a retail sort of setting, with perhaps a few residences across the top, similar to what Moss Lane is in Mosman Park.”

City of Fremantle planning staff will prepare the report and recommendations to the state JDAP.

by ISLA TOMLINSON