City Fails to Support $200m AUKUS-Linked Business Hub
Showing that a project’s greatest strength can be considered a fatal weakness, plans for a $200-million business hub in a Perth precinct where AUKUS submarines are to be maintained have been recommended for refusal.
Scope Property Group has proposed two office towers of 15 and 13 storeys, a five-floor building with restaurants and retail tenancies, a five-level medical and office building and a 10-level, 161-key hotel at Henderson 23km south-west of the CBD.
In February, Scope’s director Shaun Quinlan told The Urban Developer that the 18,472sq m site of the planned Henderson Business Hub was the only block zoned for retail, commercial and community uses in the 400ha Australian Marine Complex.
“Our development is right in the heart of AUKUS and the AMC, overlooking Garden Island and the main sites of operation,” he said of the Pennock Architects-designed project at the time.
“This project is front and centre; it’s the only area in the AMC where you’ll be able to get 2000sq m of office space within spitting distance of the main activity hub.”
But in a recommendation to Western Australia’s metro outer development assessment panel, City of Cockburn planner Riley Brown has nominated the proximity to ship building and maintenance operations among reasons for his recommendation of refusal.
“The [hotel aspect of the] proposal does not comply with ... the Environmental Protection Authority’s [recommended] separation distances between industrial and sensitive land uses as an existing ship building industry (emitting gas, noise, dust and odour) is located less than 200m from the proposed sensitive [hotel] land use,” his report to the panel says.
“The proposal is inconsistent with the objectives of State Planning Policy 4.1—Industrial Interface as it intensifies tourist development within an established industrial area, contributing to land use conflict and potential constraint on existing and future industrial operations, contrary to the strategic intent of the area.”
Brown said the “economic and amenity impact” of introducing the noise-sensitive hotel would be significant.
“Given the onus is on noise emitting operators to comply with the Environmental Protection (Noise) Regulations 1997, the proposal presents an unacceptable risk of land-use sterilisation,” he said.
Brown also said the proposal had a 424-bay shortfall of parking, did not demonstrate the surrounding road network could accommodate traffic generated by the business park, and had a deficient air quality assessment.
Quinlan said he and Scope’s other director Robert Engelhard would attend the panel’s decision-making meeting along with their planning consultant (SLR Consulting) on May 5 to adress the air quailty and other issues.
“There’s a whole lot of holes and inconsistencies in the city’s response,” he said this week.
“[The project] is 100 per cent within the planning framework and the existing zoning.
“The reality is that’s the only site [in the AMC] that has that ability for that [land] use.”
Scope’s development site, at 81 Quill Way, occupies a unique position in the AMC as the only lot zoned Local Centre, distinguishing it from the surrounding industrial-zoned land.
“This zoning establishes a strategic role for the site in accommodating a mix of commercial, service and employment-supporting uses that respond to the needs of the surrounding workforce and industrial precinct,” Brown’s report said.
“The precinct is expected to see an increase in interest and investment from both the public and private sectors due to significant projects slated for [Perth’s] south-west corridor (such as AUKUS, Westport and the future defence precinct).
Established in 2003, the AMC is WA’s main shipbuilding and maintenance centre. The federal government has promised $12 billion to help deliver an AUKUS defence precinct there as the start of what is estimated to be a $25-billion development project over the next decade.
Under the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the UK and the US, Garden Island, off the seaside suburb of Rockingham, is slated to host US and UK nuclear-powered submarines from as early as 2027. Maintenance on the existing subs, and other nuclear-powered ones planned to be built in Adelaide, will be done at the AMC.
At present, Scope’s site is occupied by a small motel, the Ship and Dock Inn tavern, a self-serve petrol station and shops.
