Behind closed doors at a council meeting held last week, the council awarded the tender to TPG to put together the $120,000 plan, aimed to guide how the town centre, including Bayswater train station, will be developed in the future.
The tender appointment was deferred at a previous meeting after community members were concerned the scope of the plan would not be wide enough.
The State Department of Planning has since endorsed the scope.
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READ NOWMayor Barry McKenna said TPG would now carry out community consultation with stakeholders, ratepayers, residents and business owners.
“If somewhere along the line we need to go into a different area of the scope of the project, then council have to consider where do we go from here,” he said.
Cr McKenna said he wanted the plan to balance increased development as the heritage and character preservation of the town centre.
He said the plan would rework SCA 12, in which a Joint Development Assessment Panel (JDAP) applied discretionary powers that led to the approval of the controversial seven-storey development at 9-11 King William Street.
“We will be revisiting SCA 12, at the moment council are happy with SCA 12 being up to five storeys and 20m, the problem we have is the word ‘discretion’,” he said.
“I’m wanting to be very clear that … anyone making decisions on behalf of council, being a JDAP, that the discretion is limited to a percentage of the variation.”
The council also moved at the meeting to create a separate priority “wish list” to present to the Planning Minister for projects to be completed with leftover Forestfield Airport Link funding.