ABOUT 75 per cent of Lemnos Street bushland and its linkage at the Woodland Precinct will now escape the bulldozer after the Statutory Planning Committee (SPC) agreed to scrap building on two of three residential blocks, initially planned for the Landcorp’s Montario Quarter development.
City of Nedlands Mayor Max Hipkins said the City had been against Landcorp’s requested development of three blocks surrounded by bushland on the site from the start.
“We argued for the road and western boundary be retained as bush, because it links the Shenton bushland, to the south and to the underwater bushland to the north,” he said.
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READ NOW“It’s an important corridor and we had requested there be no buildings in that area at all.”
LandCorp lodged a subdivision application in March this year, and an amended version went before the SPC at a confidential meeting on November 19.
The amended plan asked for an increase in retaining the area of bushland.
The SPC agreed to alter the plan and delete two of the three development sites for conservation purposes.
“Development number three was the best one where construction should occur as it is close to the road and won’t disturb the bulk of the bush,” Mr Hipkins said.
“They accepted our argument for two of the sites and accepted development on the third – I think it was a reasonable compromise.”
The SPC agreed the loss of vegetation, proposed by the Bushfire Management Plan, was not acceptable and did not achieve an appropriate balance between bushfire risk management and protection of flora and fauna.
The Bushfire Management Plan had proposed clearing local bushland at the Woodland Precinct in order to achieve a low level Bushfire Attack Level, which was deemed unnecessary by the SPC.