Burswood: Peninsula towers on the rise

THE Burswood Peninsula skyline is set to be reshaped with the approval of the area’s sixth and tallest residential tower.

At 31 storeys, Mirvac’s so-called Tower 6 will sit city-side of the area’s existing line of towers and share uninterrupted views across the Swan River to the CBD and of nearbylandmarks Optus Stadium and Crown Perth.

The Metro Joint Development Assessment Panel granted fresh development approval for a new, taller and sleeker building at the Bow River Promenade site on Friday, superseding the 23-storey, 176-apartment tower plan it sanctioned in 2014.

The 101m-high building will house nearly 200 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and has approval for a five-level podium that will include parking for 267 cars and 27 bicycles, a business centre and some of the apartments. A shared pool, gym, lounge, lawn and barbecue areas for residents will be on level six.

At Friday’s meeting, Element planning principal Murray Casselton said the curved, slender design had drawn accolades from the council’s design committee and was a better development than what was previously approved for the site.

“It was always meant to be a residential tower and this sits right at the pinnacle of design,” he said.

Burswood resident Neil Kidd, who lives in an apartment about 200m from the proposed tower, tried to dissuade the panel from its approval decision.

The director for the proposed Perth World Trade Centre criticised compliance inconsistencies between the development plan and the 15-year-old Burswood Lakes Structure Plan, which has proved to be well past its use-by date.

The 2003 structure plan limits building height to 21 storeys and 66m but came before Optus Stadium and the 24-storey Crown Towers shifted the goalposts for development on the peninsula.

Mr Kidd argued unsuccessfully a development approval for the tower should not be adjudicated before a revised local structure plan was in place.

While panel members agreed the structure plan was outdated and urged the Town of Victoria Park to update it urgently, they were not dissuaded from approving the development application for Tower 6.

The tower’s planners also fought for, and won, a concession to avoid paying the standard 1 per cent public art contribution to the Town of Victoria Park, worth about $900,000.

Mirvac will landscape and eventually hand back to council an 800sq m area no longer needed for construction of the tower as a trade-off. The panel backed a suggestion by president Megan Adair to make that arrangement subject to a legal agreement.