Policy is a rubber stamp

Dear Echo News,

Once again, Kalamunda’s councillors are being asked to rubber-stamp a policy that the city’s own administration knows will not work.

The draft Local Planning Policy 33, grandly titled ‘Future Forest,’ is not a tree protection policy.

It is a policy designed to make tree removal easier while projecting the appearance of environmental responsibility.

In plain terms: greenwashing with a green title.

The city’s environmental record is appalling.

In the 2020 RMIT study ‘Where Will All the Trees Be found’ Kalamunda had one of the largest reductions in tree canopy cover of any local government authority in Australia.

Not just in Western Australia - in the whole of Australia.

The city’s own data confirms the scale: High Wycombe lost more than 71 per cent of its tree canopy in a single decade, while Forrestfield lost more than 65 per cent.

Native vegetation has been disappearing at 53ha per year - nearly three times the rate of a decade earlier.

Over the same period the city protected 2.2ha of conservation land while 730ha of native vegetation were destroyed.

That is the track record.

Now consider what this council has been doing simultaneously.

Wattle Grove South. Maida Vale South. Jorgensen Park. Future Forest.

Say those four names and ask what they have in common.

In each case, this council has sacrificed environmental values to development and commercial interests.

Not reluctantly. Not after exhausting alternatives.

Routinely, and against the express wishes of the community it is supposed to represent.

This is not a preference for development.

It is a systematic dismantling of environmental constraints - one decision at a time - that gives developers the effective right to bring in bulldozers and clear whatever stands between them and a profit.

At Wattle Grove South and Maida Vale South, over 350ha of environmentally sensitive rural land harbouring ecological communities of conservation significance was stripped of every legal vegetation protection overnight - voted through against the objections of an overwhelming majority of affected residents.

Wildlife corridors and habitat refuges that took thousands of years to develop were erased in an evening.

At Jorgensen Park, a Crown Reserve set aside for recreation and conservation - and known black cockatoo habitat - was handed to a commercial ticketed event operator under a non-disclosure agreement so tight that residents were forced to call a special electors’ meeting simply to find out what was being done with their public land.

And now Future Forest - a policy so riddled with exemptions that the city’s own administration has acknowledged in writing they are open to misuse.

Virtually all private residential land - where most canopy loss occurs - is exempt from any meaningful protection.

The city’s own manager of approval services stated on the public record that the policy in isolation is ‘unlikely’ to meet the Urban Forest Strategy’s 30 per cent canopy target.

The administration recommends adoption regardless.

A proven alternative exists.

The WALGA Model Tree Retention Policy has been adopted by at least nine WA councils.

It has enforceable protections, narrower exemptions, and genuine legal weight.

This council dismissed it - without explanation, without justification, and without shame

Kalamunda markets itself on its hills, its trees, its wildlife.

These are not just amenity. They are habitat, carbon storage, flood mitigation, and the reason most of us live here.

A policy with exemptions large enough to drive a bulldozer through is not a future forest.

It is permission to continue the environmental vandalism of the past.

Councillors who vote to adopt this policy own what comes next.

C Dornan

Wattle Grove

Property left in the shade

Dear Echo News,

I am writing to bring to your attention a planning matter currently before the Town of Bassendean that may be of interest to your readers.

The town is expected to consider Development Application DA2025-145, being a proposed additional grouped dwelling at 59A First Avenue, Bassendean, at its upcoming agenda forum and council meeting.

My wife and I own and occupy the adjoining property at 59 First Avenue.

We recently welcomed our first child and are concerned about the significant impacts the proposal will have on our family home.

According to the town’s own assessment, the combined impact of the existing and proposed dwellings would result in approximately 47 per cent overshadowing of our property at midday on the winter solstice.

More concerning is where that shadow falls.

The assessment confirms that only approximately 30 per cent of our north-facing dining and living room window will retain solar access, meaning around 70 per cent of this major living area window will be overshadowed.

The assessment also confirms that our covered alfresco area will be completely overshadowed and that only approximately 37 per cent of our landscaped backyard will retain solar access.

Our home was deliberately designed around north-facing windows and passive solar principles to achieve the required seven-star energy efficiency standards applicable at the time of construction.

We are struggling to understand how a development that significantly reduces access to winter sunlight for an adjoining family home can be considered consistent with those same planning objectives.

Importantly, we do not oppose development of the site or a second dwelling in principle.

Our concern is that alternative design solutions appear available that could substantially reduce the impacts on neighbouring properties.

A further concern is that the current proposal is the second dwelling on the site.

While the first dwelling was approved previously, the cumulative outcome now proposed is substantially different.

Our family will not experience the shadow from each dwelling separately; we will experience the combined impact every day.

We believe the matter raises broader questions about planning policy, residential amenity, solar access and the balance between increased development density and the protection of existing homes.

F Voglino

Bassendean