Ocean Reef Marina.
Camera IconOcean Reef Marina. Credit: Supplied/Martin Kennealey

Ocean Reef Marina: environment review to EPA

Tyler BrownJoondalup Times

THE City of Joondalup held a special council meeting on August 29 relating to the Ocean Reef Marina project.

The meeting was for the major projects committee to note Joondalup chief executive Garry Hunt’s intention to resubmit an amended draft public environmental review (PER) to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).

The PER aims to ensure the full environmental effects of the Ocean Reef Marina are properly understood, to inform mitigation and management controls and to enable an environmental impact assessment to be conducted.

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It only covers the marine-based components, not the land-based, unless they have the potential to affect the marine environment.

The land-based components are being progressed through the Metropolitan Region Scheme (MRS) amendment and the structure plan.

In May, the City submitted the draft PER and relevant technical reports and management plans to the EPA for preliminary assessment.

Since then, the City has received comments on the documents submitted and amended the draft PER, technical reports and management plans to address issues raised.

City officers believe the PER is suitable for public advertising and hope that will happen at the same time as the MRS amendment, pending any more changes.

The nine councillors present voted to resubmit the amended documents to the EPA for approval to advertise and to request a direct mail-out to all houses in the City as part of a communication plan.

The meeting was scheduled for 7pm but was postponed to 7.40pm and finished by 7.42pm. No members of the public attended but afterwards, some residents raised concerns about not being notified of the meeting in time to attend.

The public notice was posted online at 1pm the day before, one resident said they did not receive the email notification until 5.34am the day after the meeting.

The resident also said the agenda for the council meeting was not posted online until the morning after the meeting.

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Mr Hunt said the City had received complaints about its subscriber notification service for public notices but the meeting was publicly advertised on the City’s website the day before the meeting.

He said the City was required to give as much notice “practicably possible at the discretion of the City”.

“Ideally, a local public notice advert would be taken out in the Times with details including the date, time, place and purpose of the meeting,” he said.

“The City was unable to place a notice in the local newspaper due to the short timeframe between when the meeting was called and when it was subsequently held.

“The item presented at the special meeting needed to be progressed promptly to enable information for the public environmental review process for the Ocean Reef Marina to be presented to, and initiated by, the Department of Environment,” he said.