FREMANTLE council has unanimously endorsed a new planning scheme allowing buildings of up to 15 storeys on selected city sites.
The draft Local Planning Scheme, which will replace the City’s 2007 scheme and more than 80 subsequent amendments, was endorsed at Thursday’s council meeting.
Cr Andrew Sullivan, who put forward a raft of amendments jiggling with suggested height limits, argued that allowing taller buildings did not mean Fremantle would be covered in wall-to-wall high-rise, saying the proposed planning controls would encourage buildings to be built to the street, with taller and more slender towers set above lower podiums.
“But our scheme typically says, ‘Well, actually, you’ve got to build to the boundaries. We want you to build to the edge. We want an urban environment,’” he said.
Cr Sullivan said the detailed shape of future development would be refined through a separate structure-planning process for the city centre.
Around Queen Victoria Street, Cr Sullivan also proposed moving the 15-storey element on the so-called Shack site away from the corner of James and Queen Victoria streets. Other sites between Queen Victoria Street and Quarry Street were adjusted from six to seven storeys, while parts of the Fremantle Malls area were reduced from a possible nine storeys to seven.
The Woolstores site and the former Myer shopping centre site remain among the locations where substantial height is contemplated, with the latter retaining a 15-storey proposal.
Cr Sullivan said the WA Government’s broader planning framework expected more infill development and that Fremantle needed to plan for a larger population.
He said the city had grown from 28,500 residents in 2011 and faced a state target of 44,000 by 2050, while the City’s own strategic target was 50,000 by 2046.
He also successfully put through an amendment to lift the Sealanes site in South Fremantle to a fifth storey.
Architect Matt Walwork, of Ecotecture, urged councillors not to assume that density around a railway station automatically translated into good urban design.
“Whilst the government’s idea to have amazingly dense nodes around train stations is, in principle, a good idea, to just cast a distance from that node as a blueprint, and call that good urban design just is not true because you must understand the context,” he said.
There was already pushback from owners who didn’t get the heights they’d hoped for, with planning consultant Ryan Soerja Djanegara asked councillors to increase heights to his clients’ sites near the northern entrance to the city, arguing that a consistent framework would allow more coordinated development.
Mr Soerja Djanegara said the properties could help form a gateway into Fremantle from the new river crossing and sought 15-storey allowances across both holdings, alongside residential development facing inward towards Queen Victoria Street and commercial uses at ground level.
Mayor Ben Lawver said the scheme strengthened heritage protections.
by STEVE GRANT