Explaining Our Disallowance of the Roe 8 and 9 MRS Amendment

2 December 2024

When the community asked me to move this Disallowance in September of this year, it was put forward as an option of last resort. The community overwhelmingly supports, as do I, the removal of this Removal of Primary Regional Roads Reservation but they are very concerned with the failure of this government to plan what might replace it, as am I.

To be blunt, this MRS Major Amendment could have been handled more proactively.

On the Roe 8 side, it is ALL regional park. This is largely good but the danger if a future Lib Government had the numbers in this place it could be turned it back into road reserve and they could build the Roe 8 Highway without any serious hurdles. There may have been merit in finding a small portion of this to develop into something that would block the road forever, like an aged care home. But this is a side issue and I hope I am proved wrong on this.

It is the Roe 9 aspect that is even more concerning and is at the heart of this disallowance. Now that this disallowance has been voted down and the removal of primary regional roads Reservation has gone through – most of the Roe 9 reserve is zoned urban. Small patches are zoned regional park but over 2/3rd will be zoned urban

This means that as today it can be used for large-scale residential, commercial, or industrial developments – as this is what a broad urban zoning in Western Australia allows for.

The reason I moved the disallowance last week was to give more time for the government to get on and do the necessary local planning with the City of Cockburn. This parallel process was possible. This WA Government own FACT SHEET – SECTION 126 – Zoning amended by Region Planning Schemes   shows a parallel amendment process with the state government as the land owner and the local government could have worked together to amend the local planning scheme text or include a special control area

I quote . “Although the local amendment cannot be finalised until the region scheme amendment is finalised, provided there is a sufficient liaison with the WAPC, both amendments can be processed in a corresponding manner.”

Instead of doing this, the WA government chose to pause any planning for the corridor while this disallowance was in place. Disappointing and concerning.

But noting we are where we are, what does the community want? The COCKBURN COMMUNITY WILDLIFE CORRIDOR website states: “A conserved and enhanced bushland and wildlife corridor that connects the Beeliar Wetlands with the Indian Ocean”

What a wonderful vision and opportunity. This is the rarest of all opportunities to do something great. To create a green link of unprecedented length through some suburbs in desperate need of more and better green spaces.

This vision has been the result of some amazing work by those in the community. Big thanks to them including those here in the gallery today.

Wetland to waves idea began over 30 years ago. After 2017 the community wildlife corridor idea gathered momentum.

Since then the community has worked hard with reports, meetings, and roundtables in response to the initial DPLH concept plan which:

• zoned most of this land ‘Urban”,
• did not explicitly entertain the opportunity of a green corridor and
• left open the possibility of this corridor predominantly being carved up into housing.

On January 17th 2023 at the Hamilton Hill Memorial Hall the community with help from my office  enlisted planning experts from Curtin University to run an indepth community consultation – something DPLH should have done. it was a full house with a strong consensus. A report was submitted to government in Jan 2023, it was but one of the highest number of unique submissions ever to an MRS amendment. Part of the 409 submissions to DPLH. Of these over 50 percent of explicitly mentioned the Wildlife Corridor and an incredible 75% expressed support for protecting the environment.  Overwhelming support for a nature corridor.

On back of this overwhelming feedback there was small movement by DPLH…An additional 9 hectares is now proposed to be re-zoned as Parks and Recreation, including the Blackwood Ave remnant bushland and remnant bushland and open space adjacent to the heritage-listed Randwick Stables. This is good but still misses the bigger picture of a corridor.

In response to these advised plans another community event was held. CCWC invited NatureLink and UWA Landscape Design to hold an session to present their work on biodiversity corridors specifically in relation to the Cockburn Community Wildlife Corridor. This event at the Cockburn Wetlands Centre on August 20th presented similar consensus for the Roe 9 Corridor.

However, what is planned today despite this overwhelming community support for a green corridor, is for most of the Roe 9 land to still to be rezoned “Urban”. The “indicative” plan has far more “development” and “residential” zones than “local parks and recreation” and the way the parks are arranged fragments the corridor.

Stock and Forrest Road intersection. The integrity of the Corridor is also threatened by the omission of the Stock and Forrest Road intersection from the proposed re-zoning.

Despite many of submissions specifically calling for the inclusion of the bushland on all 4 sides of this intersection to be included in the proposed “Parks” zoning, the whole intersection has been left as Main Roads land.

The widening of Stock Rd to facilitate another 2 lanes and the likely construction of a Forest Rd flyover would be devastating to the Corridor.

The bushland in this part of the Corridor cotains some of the best Banksia and Tuart . The Environmental Assessment Study conducted for the DPLH rates the ecological value of much of the bushland in this intersection as “high”

This should be part of the corridor too.

IN CONCLUSION – Everyone but state government and agencies support this corridor. The community wants it. The Fremantle Council supports it. The Cockburn Council has a clear motion asking for a corridor and wants it to be special control area with an ecological linkages. Hopefully the state government can back it in too.

The only argument I have heard against this is this land is needed for more housing. To address this the community commissioned UWA to examine how a green link can sit along more housing.

The results are compelling: 680–830 dwellings with an urban nature corridor with medium density housing apartments and town houses. Versus only 290 dwellings for BAU r20-R40 housing

Good planning can see more greening and more housing. A failure to plan we see the worst of both worlds – less green and less housing and a lost opportunity.

Perhaps this could be a key element of the Perth and Peel greening strategy – hopefully will be in it. In conclusion, this disallowance has been put forward more because there are community concerns that this important planning by the state government won’t happen quickly enough and the land will be carved up.

There is a legitimate community fear of development with no controls could get underway starting tomorrow – developments that could undermine the continuous nature and people link. I hope we can see the government and the department step up and ensure this doesn’t happen.

I will finish with Quote from a Murdoch University Study

Remnant native vegetation within the Cockburn Community Wildlife Corridor CCWC is highly valued by the community and Whadjuk traditional owners; it contains federally listed Threatened Ecological Communities (Banksia Woodlands and Tuart Woodlands) and roosting sites for endangered Carnaby’s Black Cockatoos and vulnerable Forest Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos. …

The CCWC has the potential to be a ‘naturelink’, an ecological linkage that promotes connectivity between bushland and wetlands sustaining biodiversity and providing multi-functional green spaces that promote human connection with nature. This would facilitate wildlife movement along the original Roe 9 road reserve despite its fragmentation. However, the CCWC currently has no statutory protection or even a definitive, agreed upon spatial footprint to guide management.

Today should be the day that this changes and I hope this state government can support this as this disallowance falls away.