‘Port Beach Precinct’ Rezoning Gets Closer - A Big Deal For Freo

On Tuesday this week, the WA Government Gazette carried this notice –

It means, unless something quite unpredictable happens along the way, that the Port Beach Precinct is getting closer to being rezoned under the Metropolitan Planning Scheme from Industrial to Urban Deferred. Rezoning will then facilitate the sort of mixed commercial/residential redevelopment of the land mentioned in the Gazette notice and that the landowners plainly have in mind.

Here’s the precinct in question. It’s bordered by the broken red line in this image, immediately to the south of the existing Leighton apartment development and near the North Fremantle Railway Station and extending right down to Tydeman Road – big.

And here’s the sort of mixed residential plus development and its projected timeline the landowners and their development consultants Urbis, generally envisage, as described on the Port Beach Precinct website created by Urbis for the project –

At the same time as this is happening, the Future of Fremantle Planning Committee has been established within the State Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage and is hard at work considering how the broader North Quay area, from Victoria Quay to Leighton, might be developed in the coming years as Fremantle Port plans the relocation of its commercial operations south to Westport at Kwinana. Here’s our earlier article on the Future of Fremantle project. Here’s the larger Future of Fremantle Committee planning area.

Obviously the two urban planning projects have much in common and the real potential to overlap, if not be in conflict. It will be interesting to see just how the two projects will be managed in the period ahead.

Urbis and its project team, recognising this potential for overlap, if not conflict, seek to reassure everyone on the project website, local residents and business owners included, in these terms –

At this stage, Urbis’ Port Beach Precinct team are keen to receive your thoughts on project ideas, assuming the rezoning to Urban Deferred is approved. Issues that have been raised over many years include the North Fremantle and Port communities’ historic connections to Sandtrax, Port and Leighton Beaches, urban opportunities for the future, the potential to re-align Curtin Avenue, and ways to bring people back into the heart of North Freo. You’ll find the link to pass on your thoughts to the Urbis team right here.

If you want to comment on the MRS rezoning itself, by objecting, or supporting or otherwise providing comment on any part of the proposed amendment, you can do so on a Form 41, which is available from the display locations including at City of Fremantle. Submissions can be lodged online, emailed to RegionPlanningSchemes@dplh.wa.gov.au or sent by post to: Secretary, Western Australian Planning Commission, Locked Bag 2506, Perth WA 6001. Submissions on the MRS proposal close 5pm, Friday 30 June 2023. Late submissions will not be considered.

This Port Beach Precinct MRS rezoning proposal is a big deal for Fremantle. We will watch its progress with great interest.

* By Michael Barker, Editor, Fremantle Shipping News

WHILE YOU’RE HERE –