RESIDENTS again made their voices heard regarding infill development in the City of Joondalup last night.
The second Joondalup Community Peaceful Protest saw about 150 people march to the Joondalup Civic Centre before the council sat for its first meeting of the year.
It followed the first march in November where the same chant rang through the streets: “What do we want? Representation. When do we want it? Now!”.
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READ NOWAt the council meeting, protest organiser and Edgewater resident Ziggi Murphy said she moved to the area in 2008 so her family could live in a leafy, quiet suburb with a spacious garden, parks and a lake.
“I did not choose to live in a housing opportunity area and I never would because I can see the awful consequences of putting huge amounts of people into small pockets of only 10 suburbs,” she said.
“This choice was made for me and my neighbours who were sold the story of subdivision.
“We’re now forced to live in fear of living next door to vast amounts of development including apartment blocks.”
Mayor Albert Jacob reiterated the State Government’s “long-held position on achieving a large percentage of future growth via infill as opposed to suburbia”.
“Every council has a mandated target and Joondalup’s is just over 20,000 dwellings which we have to meet, with the exception of a small part of Burns Beach, Iluka and the Joondalup city centre, with infill.”
He said the City’s planning powers were “only those delegated to it by State parliament and State laws”.
“We do not make the final decision on our own planning schemes, we simply make recommendations and even these are frequently edited by the final decision-makers which are the WA Planning Commission and Planning Minister,” he said.
Mr Jacob also reminded residents the council had tried to implement a provision, as part of Amendment 73 that brought in higher residential density, to not allow multiple dwellings on land less then 2000sq m but that was overruled by the State Government.