Property giant Satterley has lobbed a Hail Mary in the dying days of a legal battle over its controversial North Stoneville development, offering to reduce the number of lots at the site to 135 until major road improvements are completed in the area.
WA Planning Commission’s legal counsel Ian Repper revealed the figure during his closing argument in the final days of the high-stakes State Administrative Tribunal fight launched by the Nigel Satterley-led company to overturn the commission’s previous rejection of the development’s structure plan.
Satterley Property Group has been fighting to build its North Stoneville development in the Perth Hills for decades.Credit: Jamie Brown/WAtoday
According to Repper, the offer would see Satterley only build 135 lots until the WA government’s EastLink upgrade of Toodyay Road was complete, or there were upgrades to the intersection of Great Eastern Highway and Seaborne Street in Mahogany Creek.
Neither road project has been funded, but in its submissions to the tribunal earlier this year Satterley said it expected EastLink to be built by 2031.
Repper criticised the on-the-fly offer and said it was “unsatisfactory” to have the developer only now propose a further reduction in lot sizes until road projects like EastLink were built, which he said was at least 10 years away.
“Plainly, a proposal for 135 lots is fundamentally different to a proposal for 1001 lots,” he said.
“None of the structure plan documentation contains any analysis of 135 lot proposal.
“Quite frankly, if a proposal of the scale of 135 lots, or even 400 lots, were proposed, it should have been presented afresh as a standardised structure plan proposal with supporting material.”
Repper also took aim at the bushfire modelling Satterley used to inform its bushfire management plans, as well as the offer to build a bushfire refuge, which was revealed in a hearing in September.
He said Satterley had not actually committed to building a bushfire refuge at all, only to provide a clear area for it.
“The applicant now says it does not view the refuge as being fundamental but discretionary,” he told the tribunal on Tuesday.
“If that’s the case how can it be relied upon to reduce risk?”
“They are just floating ideas that might or might not work or might or might not happen.
“The respondent submits that the applicant’s list of proposed modifications is not a substitute for a well-developed proposal that is itself supported by adequate technical analysis and evidence.”
At the heart of the commission’s refusal is the bushfire risk posed to the projected 2800 residents that would live in the estate once complete.
“[The WAPC] submits that this case reduces to a simple proposition: it has not been demonstrated that the fire risk to property, life and infrastructure is capable of being mitigated to an acceptable level if this proposed structure plan is implemented,” Repper said.
Repper said it was not the tribunal’s role to modify Satterley’s structure plan, only to assess whether it met planning rules.
“The structure plan should be refused,” he said.
Satterley Group was approached for comment, and its lawyers will present their closing statements on Thursday.
During its opening submissions in September Satterley’s legal counsel Paul McQueen said North Stoneville had more scrutiny and resources thrown at it than any other project in the state, and its rejection was influenced by politics rather than planning.
He delved into the history of the site to show how, at various points, stakeholders including the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and Shire of Mundaring had supported aspects of the development, including its fire and traffic management plans.
North Stoneville has been rejected by the local community since 1991, by the Shire of Mundaring council and the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, in more than 4000 public submissions, and twice by WA’s highest planning authority since 2020.
Community opposition revolves around the loss of native bushland and fire risk.
The WAPC rejected the most recent North Stoneville plan in December 2023 because of the bushfire risk.
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