City of Joondalup business forum discusses Joondalup’s diverse property uses

JOONDALUP is a “40-year overnight success”, according to property analyst and commentator Gavin Hegney.

Mr Hegney joined LandCorp metropolitan and industrial general manager John Hackett, Lakeside Joondalup Shopping City centre manager Gemma Hannigan and Primewest director David Schwartz for a panel discussion at a City of Joondalup business forum at Joondalup Resort on Tuesday morning.

The panel was facilitated by Y-Research principal and chief problem solver Damian Stone, whose recent report gave the Joondalup city centre the highest score for diversity of property uses across the 24 main activity centres in the metropolitan area, including the Perth CBD.

The Activity Centres Diversity Index is a 100-point system based on 19 measures including the range of retail uses, size of the office and apartment markets, civic uses and transport links.

Joondalup scored 90 points, four ahead of the Perth CBD and 14 ahead of Rockingham in third.

This can be put down to Joondalup being home to Lakeside Joondalup and Joondalup Health Campus, a maturing office market, the largest apartment market north of Scarborough, good public transport links and a low level of vacancy across property markets.

“The Joondalup city centre, through careful long-term planning and infrastructure delivery, has grown to accommodate Perth’s largest shopping centre, major university and health campuses, solid office and industrial property fed employment bases, and the largest apartment market in the northern suburbs,” Mr Stone said.

“This diversity of property uses has given Joondalup a competitive advantage over competing centres, which should fuel future growth over the next decades.”

The panellists also discussed topics including how Joondalup’s property diversity had been nurtured by planning initiatives over the past three decades, how the region’s innovation agenda will flow through to its property markets and what advice they would give the new State Government to fast track growth in Joondalup.

Mayor Troy Pickard said it was pleasing to hear the panel’s feedback about the Joondalup city centre, which is experiencing unprecedented growth.

“Cranes in the Joondalup city centre have now become commonplace,” he said.

“Construction of a new eight to nine-storey building on Davidson Terrace that will house more than 800 public servants from early 2019 has already commenced and the City recently released its draft Joondalup Activity Centre Plan for public comment, which once adopted, will facilitate the development of the city centre over the next decade.“The future development of the large land parcel in front of the City’s administration centre, known as Boas Place, will provide a strategic setting and a sought-after retail, commercial and residential address and will form the new heart of the city centre.”

Mr Pickard said the City would continue to be proactive and innovative to deliver on the vision set out by Sir Charles Court in the 1970s for Joondalup to become the civic, cultural and economic capital of Perth’s northern corridor.

JOONDALUP Mayor Troy Pickard used Tuesday morning’s business forum to announce “two transformative initiatives” that he would present to the council for endorsement during its current budget discussions.

The first was a new $1 million creativity and innovation fund to be housed at the Joondalup performing arts centre if approved and the second was to transform the Woodvale and Whitford libraries into creativity and innovation resource centres.

“These two exciting new initiatives will have no net impact on the City’s budget and will play an important role in continuing to transform the City of Joondalup,” he said.

THE City of Joondalup will welcome 800 State Government employees in early 2019.

Primewest director David Schwartz said at Tuesday’s business forum they had “tried to be proactive and look into the future with regards to parking”.

“We’ve designed the parking levels on the basis that they can be built in to office floors,” he said.

“Looking to the future, probably five to 10 years, we’re going to see more of these self-driven cars.

“The use of cars, the use of parking is going to change.”

He said the eight-storey building, which will house workers from the Water and Environmental Regulation departments and the Environmental Protection Authority Office, was a “great opportunity”.

“I think for some of the people that are coming to work here, there’s been a little bit of resistance initially but I think in retrospect they’ll find you either get on the train or get on the freeway and you’re going to get a free run to work,” he said.

“We still have more vacant land on the site and it is our intention to continue to develop it working with the City of Joondalup.”

He said Joondalup was in a “great position to attract more government-type businesses”.

“What I believe is going to happen, now we’ve got the departments of water and environment coming in to our building, we’re going to get all sorts of other ancillary services and consulting business that hang off those departments,” he said.

“Those people are going to need offices and they’ll need services so it starts attracting and getting a natural growth and momentum.

“Once we get going and our whole building is filled and consultants and all sorts of other people have come to Joondalup wanting to look for space for offices, it will continue that drive.”

Y-Research principal and chief problem solver Damian Stone said 80 per cent of Perth’s office space was within 5km of the CBD.

“Joondalup is in a prime spot because it’s more than 15km from the CBD,” he said.

Property analyst and commentator Gavin Hegney said planning was “still centred around the motor vehicle”.

He said it was interesting to hear Mr Schwartz talk about Primewest’s forward thinking to allow the carpark to eventually be redesigned for other uses.

He encouraged other developers to “reset their thinking away from the motor vehicle and more to some of the technology that’s coming”.

Joondalup chief executive Garry Hunt said flexibility in design would be “fundamentally important” to the City and a “new ingredient that needs to be built in to everything we do”.

LAKE Joondalup is “a fantastic opportunity to tap in to”, according to property analyst and commentator Gavin Hegney.

He said the current property market was “scaring buyers away” because there was “so much choice and so much supply”.

“But you fast forward 10 years and get through the next property cycle, that whole coastal strip…north of Joondalup to Two Rocks will be a premier area designed from the ground up,” he said.

He said waterfront properties were prime real estate and this could include Lake Joondalup.

“Lake Joondalup is about four times larger than Kings Park,” he said.

“What a great recreational amenity; it could be a showcased tourist destination.”

While also talking about real estate, Mr Hegney raised concerns of infill developers selling apartments that would remain unoccupied.

“There’s a difference between occupied density and unoccupied density,” he said.

“Unoccupied density is a disaster. Occupied density is vibrant.

“Sell apartments to someone who is going to occupy it; make sure there’s a clause.”

Joondalup chief executive Garry Hunt said the City had been working with Devwest to look at developing student accommodation in the city centre.

“Students bring vitality and spending,” he said.