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.

Published Echo News June 9, 2023

THE City of Swan includes concerns about having to contribute to road upgrades and the extent and sequence of changes proposed to the road network among reasons why it cannot support the amended North Stoneville SP 34 proposal.
Swan councillors voted unanimously to advise the Western Australian Planning Commission (WAPC) the amendment put forward by Satterley Property Group could not be supported because the application did not provide any confirmation that the city would not be required to contribute towards roads, infrastructure or other upgrades required within the city’s municipal jurisdiction for the development to proceed.
A motion moved by councillor Aaron Bowman and seconded by councillor Cate McCullough in May said the application also included ambiguities regarding the extent and sequencing of changes proposed to the road network which could have further implications for the city in relation to the impact of road or infrastructure upgrades.
The officer’s report for the May council meeting said a number of upgrades were proposed for the amended structure plan with those in the city’s boundaries including construction of the missing portion (~210m) of road between Hawkstone Street and Woolhouse Lane (previously known as Cameron Road) and their intersections.
Also included are upgrades to the intersection with Toodyay Road at Roland Road and Stoneville Road.
“Main Roads WA has jurisdiction to comment on the suitability of upgrades at Toodyay Road-future EastLink,’’ the officer’s report says.
“Preliminary review of the anticipated traffic volumes relative along Hawkstone Street and Woolhouse Lane (once connected) and Roland Road-Stoneville Road indicates that they would operate within acceptable technical tolerances.
“But there may be local amenity concerns with an overall increase in traffic.’’
Intersection upgrades within the Shire of Mundaring include Great Eastern Highway and Seaborne Street, Roland Road and Stoneville Road.
The North Stoneville revised transport impact statement mentions a number of road and intersection proposals including a proposed Hawkstone Road and Cameron Road connection.
“It is understood that the current disconnection between Hawkstone Road and Cameron Road will be addressed in the future and prior to 2031 so that two roads form a continuous east-west link providing convenient and legible connection between Roland Road and Stoneville Road along the northern LSP boundary,’’ the revised transport impact statement said.
Another is a proposed Great Eastern Highway and Seaborne Street intersection upgrade concept, which the revised transport impact statement said would require upgrades before 2031 assuming EastLink had not been constructed by that point.
“The upgrade is required to improve the current capacity and operation of this intersection under normal traffic activities and in particular in case of bushfire emergencies prior to implementation of EastLink in 2031 and beyond.’’
According to Main Roads WA EastLink will provide a safer, more efficient route between Perth and Northam, to cater for a future increase in regional and interstate freight movement and projected growth in local population.
But there is currently no funding for the construction of the highway between Middle Swan and Northam.

Published Echo News April 14, 2023

THE bushfire simulation modelling carried out for the amended North Stoneville structure plan Part 3B has attracted support from the leader of the CSIRO bushfire behaviour and risks team.
Dr Andrew Sullivan told Echo News the company behind the bushfire modelling report had gone to great lengths to make it as bullet-proof as they can.
“The science that they’ve employed to do this is basically the best available for that job and they’ve gone to great lengths to try and ensure that it is as meaningful and applicable as possible to the conditions,’’ he said.
The report by Strategen JBS&G said while the simulated design bushfire scenarios represented the worst credible case bushfires for a 1:50 year weather event, they do represent a “perfect storm” of conditions that while possible, had historically rarely occurred in unison.
“On this basis, we are comfortable that there is sufficient conservatism embedded in the model inputs to ensure that an actual bushfire would be slower and smaller than what is being represented in the simulations over the first four hours, and likely considerably slower and smaller,’’ the report said.
Dr Sullivan said most rural fire agencies in Australia had some role in the planning process so the planning office need to go to the rural fire service to get their opinion on some planning proposals.
“But what they normally have to comment on is not that detailed,’’ he said.
“The amount of effort these people have gone into to do the simulations to consider all of the likely inputs in terms of the weather and fuels and their consideration of both the growth phase and what they call the mature phase of fire spread, the locations of the fires, the prevailing weather and the fact that they’ve bumped up the actual historical weather to be more representative of the increased fire danger index values in the two that they did - that is a lot of work and it’s as comprehensive as I’ve seen.’’
The report’s conservative vegetation values met with his approval.
“They state the forest hasn’t been burnt for 25 years – that is quite considerable, if you look at the average fuel age in the Perth Hills it’s going to be somewhat less than that.”
He gave two reasons for bushfire simulation models using the CSIRO-developed program SPARK and adopting bushfire rate of spread (RoS) models as recommended by the CSIRO publication A Guide to Rate of Fire Spread Models being suitable for modelling bushfires in the Perth Hills.
“(First) the forest model – the one they call VESTA – or the dry eucalypt fire model is intended for use in dry wood forests – all different species of dry eucalypt forest and what’s in the Perth Hills is specifically a dry eucalypt forest.
“The second thing is that the research work that we did to develop that model was actually done in Western Australia in jarrah forest.
“So of all places in the country where the model is applicable in dry eucalypt forest is in jarrah forest in Western Australia.’’
On March 28 Save Perth Hills (SPH) said Satterley had failed the bushfire prone Perth Hills’ community again by presenting an inferior ‘amended North Stoneville plan’ featuring unrealistic bushfire evacuation models, a development that requires unacceptable levels of environmental destruction and creates local traffic impacts of at least 8000 extra traffic movements on surrounding rural roads, every day.

Published Echo News March 17, 2030

THE amended North Stoneville SP 34 is now available for public comment.
A replacement Part3B of the amended structure plan was submitted by Satterley on February 20, which according to Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage has been incorporated into the amended structure plan documentation.
The amended structure plan is now being advertised for public comment for a minimum period of 42 days.
DPLH said interested parties including the community, the Shire of Mundaring, the City of Swan and government agencies such as the Department of Fire and Emergency Services are invited to provide comment on the amended structure plan.
On Tuesday about 50 Save Perth Hills (SPH) supporters protested outside Satterley’s against the proposed North Stoneville development.
After the Satterley protest SPH went to Parliament House to handover a petition of 2500 signatures to Greens MLC Dr Brad Pettitt and Labor’s East Metropolitan MLC Lorna Harper.
The petition seeks to have the government reverse its rejection of a key Wooroloo Bushfire Inquiry recommendation, that DFES be granted decision-making powers to have the final say on housing development approvals, such as North Stoneville, when they’re located in extreme bushfire zones.
An SPH spokesperson said they examining the amended plan with its subject matter experts and would soon provide an easy-to-follow summary for people interested in preparing a submission.
The revised structure plan identifies the future proposed land uses within the project area as including three separate villages, residential land uses comprising, 42 natural living lots (average 1ha), 647 suburban lots (average 1700sqm), 312 village urban lots (average 1200 sqm), a local centre, two educational sites, recycled wastewater infrastructure, internal road network and 22 areas of public open space (POS), including local/active POS, conservation POS and special sites.
It also includes creek corridors and drainage basins, bushfire emergency and fire service access routes and multiple connections to the surrounding existing public road network.
North Stoneville SP 34 is expected to be developed over about a 15-year time period, with staggered subdivision stages.
Construction is anticipated to commence within village 2 with initial access from Roland Road.
The revised structure plan says existing public roads will be upgraded to provide for a road network that can support the planned population growth in both normal and emergency conditions.