Karla Champion and Gary Wood from Yanchep Lavender with their dog Annie. Photo: Martin Kennealey
Camera IconKarla Champion and Gary Wood from Yanchep Lavender with their dog Annie. Photo: Martin Kennealey Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Carabooda lavender farmers given conditional approval to open restaurant

Lucy JarvisNorth Coast Times

OWNERS of a lavender farm in Carabooda have won their appeal against a Wanneroo council decision.

Karla Champion and Gary Wood took their bid to build a restaurant at the Yanchep Lavender Farm at 272 Old Yanchep Road to the State Administrative Tribunal.

At a hearing on March 2, SAT member Marie Connor set aside the December 5 council decision to refuse their application.

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Ms Connor substituted it with a decision to grant conditional development approval for a restaurant and the sale of products associated with the rural use.

Some of the couple’s produce.
Camera IconSome of the couple’s produce. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

Conditions included a maximum limit of 152 customers at any one time and limiting the restaurant operating hours to between 10.30 am to 10.30pm, seven days a week, including public holidays.

The operating hours for the rural use, which is the lavender farm, was limited to between 7am and 5pm, seven days a week.

One condition required that plans for fencing and vegetation buffers would be changed to 1.8m high fencing, composed of material with about 50 per cent porosity and set back 1m from the eastern boundary.

The council had rejected the application three times, citing concerns about potential conflict with surrounding vegetable farms if spray from the latter was blown onto the restaurant premises.

Another of the SAT conditions required the owners to display signs warning customers they were in an intensive agricultural farming area where “there may be noise from farming equipment and also dust generation” and “the wind may also carry some odours or mist”.

The couple said it was “great result” as SAT had removed some of the extra conditions that the City’s administration had recommended if the council were to approve the plans.

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