THE statutory planning committee is recommending the Western Australian Planning Commission refuse the North Stoneville structure plan 34 at its Thursday, December 7 meeting.

On Thursday, November 23 the WAPC was due to hear deputations and comments on the item at a joint-meeting held at Mundaring Arena.

Earlier this week Save Perth Hills (SPH) said it had every reason to be confident the WAPC would endorse the recommendation to refuse the proposal, which is also opposed by the City of Swan and Shire of Mundaring.

SPH chair Peter Brazier said the recommendation for refusal tells Satterley and the landowner, the Anglican Church, yet again that their proposed North Stoneville townsite was too dangerous and too environmentally destructive and it should be rejected by the WAPC.

According to the WAPC statutory planning committee, Satterley’s amended structure plan did not demonstrate that the threat of bushfire risk to people, property, and infrastructure could be appropriately mitigated.

Echo News asked the leader of the CSIRO bushfire behaviour and risks team Andrew Sullivan to comment. In April he said the bushfire simulation models in the amended plan used the CSIRO-developed program SPARK and adopted bushfire rate of spread models, as recommended by the CSIRO publication A Guide to Rate of Fire Spread Models, which were suitable for modelling bushfires in the Perth Hills.

But on Wednesday a CSIRO spokeswoman said the Australian government scientific research agency did not want to comment at this stage.

The statutory planning committee recommendation to refuse said the technical information submitted in support of the amended structure plan, including traffic, evacuation and bushfire analysis and modelling, did not include adequate or accurate details to demonstrate that the risk of impacts from a bushfire, including safe evacuation in a bushfire emergency, was acceptable.

It also said that insufficient information was provided to identify that the protection of environmental conservation values could be appropriately balanced with the outcomes of bushfire risk management in perpetuity, including identification of appropriate management authorities responsible for maintaining conservation and bushfire outcomes.

The recommendation said refusing the application was warranted, given that adequate and accurate information to demonstrate that the threat of bushfire risk was acceptable had not been provided.

Also the recommendation said the true impact of traffic on the road network to provide for appropriate local and regional transport network outcomes had not been demonstrated.

It also advised the applicant there were typographical and reference inconsistencies and discrepancies throughout the different documents forming the amended structure plan, that in any event would need to be addressed in order for the amended structure plan to receive a final determination.

The WAPC’s decision on the amended structure plan is due to be made public by December 18 with a State Administrative Tribunal directions hearing set for February 2.