CITY of South Perth last night voted against its officer’s recommendation to approve a 33-storey development on Melville Parade.
The application from Niche Living Homes proposed a 16-storey tower plus a 13.4m podium with 146 residential units, 19 serviced apartments, a communal office, cafe, convenience store and medical consulting rooms.
Mayor Sue Doherty said the council considered the development had an unacceptable amenity impact on the adjoining owners at 3 Bowman Street in terms of the bulk and scale from the nil set back of the podium.
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READ NOW“The development at 3 Bowman Street is taken in the Responsible Authority Report (RAR) as not being contemporary yet there is no definition of contemporary in our town planning scheme and without a clear understanding of what is contemporary and what is not the RAR in my view presents a subjective comment and assessment,” she said.
“This leads on to the argument that the zero site set back for the podium is again subjective as the local government does have the capacity to determine set backs to determine light and solar penetration between buildings which 3 Bowman Street is to be denied due to the bulk and scale of this development.”
Bowman Street resident Heather Sjoberg spent eight years serving on the Darwin Development Consent Authority and eight years serving on the Darwin senior council.
Ms Sjoberg said she was very happy and thought council had seen there had been an inadequate assessment of the application and that there was a lot more work that needed to be done before it was ready to be recommend for approval.
“I hope JDAP pays attention to what the elected body decided because after all they do represent to community in South Perth and I think there option should carry weight,” she said.
The development application will go to the Metro Central Joint Development Assessment Panel (JDAP) on February 9.
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