Rural rebellion at plan to populate Perth’s urban fringe

At the base of Perth’s Darling Scarp, around 80 rural farmlets have stood for decades, ranging from modest aged homes, sheds and stables, to imposing brick-and-tile retreats on vast lawns.

Among Wattle Grove’s remnant woodlands, tree-changers and hobby farm paddocks are larger allotments such as a turf farm, abandoned poultry farms and the odd industrial shed.

This part of the foothills has traditionally been considered rural, a transition zone separating the suburbs from the hills, but the modern reality is an uneasy mishmash of conflicting priorities.

Surrounding Wattle Grove are the concrete jungles of Cannington and Welshpool, the soon-to-be industrial zone of Maddington-Kenwick, the semi-rural Orange Grove and Lesmurdie, and rapidly urbanising Forrestfield. Traffic thunders along Wattle Grove’s Tonkin Highway and Welshpool Road East borders, while planes from the nearby airport roar overhead.

Marooned in the middle of it all, and inconveniently complicating everything, is one of Perth’s largest, most significant and biodiverse wetlands.

This ain’t the country anymore. And the looming rezoning of Wattle Grove from rural to urban is hard to countenance for residents.

Bev and Charles Dornan, now retirees, have lived on their 2.5-acre block for 30 years after moving there as a working couple with a teenage daughter who yearned to experience rural life. It turned out everything they’d dreamed, said Bev Dornan.

“It’s like coming to a holiday house as soon as you cross Welshpool Road East,” she said.

“The cares and worries of the working world just disappear.

“Bandicoots gather around our morning tea table, and black cockatoos visit us every night.

“And it’s a wonderfully supportive community ... but we don’t live in each other’s pockets.”

The Dornans are the founders of EcoVision, a Town Team which opposes the rezoning and mounted one of 105 submissions to a public environmental review being conducted by the state’s independent environmental watchdog.

Residents oppose the loss of rural identity and worry about loss of tree canopy and habitat for endangered black cockatoos and quendas.

But the major concern causing the Environmental Protection Authority to employ the public review process – more traditionally used in WA for major resource projects – is the proximity to the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands.

Wetland water concerns run deep

Numerous endangered and fragile ecosystems are dependent on the health of these wetlands, which contain almost half of Greater Perth’s biodiversity in just 1 per cent of the city’s area.

The wetlands are set to be surrounded by industrial development on their Maddington-Kenwick side, and now on the other side by the Wattle Grove residential development.

While Tonkin Highway forms a major barrier between the wetlands and the rezoning area, the scientific concern is the flow of sub-surface water to and from the wetlands.

Developer Hesperia on behalf of proponent the WA Planning Commission has commissioned a 400-plus-page environmental report from 13 scientific companies, formulated with input from several government environmental agencies, which took several years to complete and was subject to peer review.

The Greater Brixton Street Wetlands’ mosaic of soils and complex water system is said to be the reason for the richness of different species.Credit: Hans Lambers

It concludes only an “extremely small” proportion of the underground water flowing from the rezoning area is going towards the wetland.

Hyd2o, the company commissioned to create a district water management strategy for the rezoning, says these contributions are “considered minor in the context of maintaining wetland hydrology.”

Nevertheless, its “guiding principle” has been to maintain pre- and post-development flow rates and volumes by artfully managing post-development stormwater runoff.

The reports also say the ceasing of operations of other rural horticultural uses of the land, especially the turf farm, will reduce pollutants currently flowing from the area.

They note that flows currently to the wetlands from the area do not have any quality control measures in place, meaning wetlands’ health might be improved with stormwater management, which could even help counteract future rainfall decline to the wetlands due to climate change.

But some scientists have told WAtoday there are knowledge gaps on this wetland, with no accepted scientific model yet finalised on its water flows.

They point out that the EPA in 2022 officially noted this lack of consensus and advised any project in the vicinity should be assessed in terms of the total cumulative impact of all the proposed developments surrounding them.

University of Western Australia environmental planner Daniel Martin, who has been working with the Beeliar Group of scientists for the past four years on the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands, said the lack of a consensus model on the hydrology was effectively leaving hydrological studies too open to interpretation.

He said the environmental review document did not represent the cumulative impact of this development plus the Maddington-Kenwick industrial development, on which a final ministerial decision was pending.

“This has many of my colleagues in the Beeliar Group, some of the best scientists in Australia, very concerned,” he said.

WA is home to the most species of carnivorous plants in the world with many – including sundews such as drosera zonaria, drosera heterophylla and drosera glanduligera – found in the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands.Credit: Hans Lambers

“Scientists are now understanding just how complex and fragile the groundwater-dependent ecosystems of these wetlands are. It demands new ways of thinking about hydrology and the ecological interdependency, because even small changes can have big impacts.”

Hesperia has committed to retaining all listed threatened ecological communities, which in practice means 3.75 hectares of banksia woodlands, as foraging habitat for black cockatoos.

Complex system erodes public trust

Wattle Grove is a case study of how the state government’s frameworks to accommodate Perth’s projected population for 2050 are beginning to take effect.

It’s also yet another case study of the city’s longstanding tensions over sprawl, infill and the sometimes opaque processes by which developers and government cooperate.

EcoVision characterises this plan as urban sprawl, not a “logical expansion” of Perth.

On the other hand, there is still no urban boundary imposed on the city’s coastal developments now stretching 100 kilometres north to south, and prominent property firm Hesperia says given the residential communities surrounding it, Wattle Grove is considered infill.

In 2018, the government released planning frameworks to accommodate the expected Perth and Peel population of 3.5 million by 2050, identifying Wattle Grove as one of the possible areas for “logical urban expansion”.

The City of Kalamunda then developed an urban concept plan for the area in 2021.

Enter Hesperia, helmed by Perth business figure Ben Lisle.

Lisle has long been an advocate and proponent of high-density inner-city redevelopments.

But numerous commentators have noted that Perth’s current high labour costs have made apartment projects unviable in most suburbs.

Lisle says he still believes density will be key to keep Perth an attractive place to live.

“However, the nature of Perth’s land and construction pricing mean that in the short to medium term we will remain heavily dependent on traditional detached housing to address our housing shortages and deliver affordable housing, while we transition over time toward medium and higher density,” he said.

He said Hesperia had dealt with landowners in Wattle Grove through its Maddington-Kenwick area industrial developments on the other side of the wetlands, and considered the area an attractive location for future housing.

Noting the state government and local council moves, Hesperia worked to secure support from key landowners and in 2021 it requested the WA Planning Commission initiate the rezoning process.

What followed has angered EcoVision, which says the process lacks transparency.

The environmental review states in its opening few pages that it is the work of 13 environmental consultants for the WA Planning Commission, without mentioning any involvement by Hesperia.

EcoVision believe this raises “significant legal and procedural concerns,” that the WAPC’s delegation to a developer with financial interests may exceed their authority under administrative law, and say a local resident had engaged a lawyer to potentially seek judicial review of any future WAPC approval.

Hesperia, on the other hand, emphasised this was standard practice, clarifying that while the WAPC is the proponent for all Metropolitan Region Scheme amendments, private developers, landowners, or local governments typically act as applicants to initiate amendments, in which case they are responsible for providing all supporting materials.

As such, when the EPA decided on a formal assessment, Hesperia as the applicant initiating the amendment was required to commission and fund the environmental review.

Hesperia says it worked closely with the WAPC, EPA Services and Department of Water and Environment Regulation to scope the document and supporting studies.

The studies were then undertaken by consultants and the review prepared, peer-reviewed, then further reviewed and vetted for endorsement by the WAPC as the proponent, then assessed by the state agencies before public release.

A WAPC spokesperson said that the legal requirements under the Planning and Development Act for an MRS amendment and Environmental Review had been followed.

A city ravenous for housing

Eighty per cent of the wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain have either been entirely bulldozed or so degraded they are no longer considered conservation-significant.

By comparison this wetland is officially recognised as of regional, national and global significance, so regulators are treading carefully.

Some would say not carefully enough, given the environmental concerns.

Others would say too carefully, with the EPA review adding years to the process as Perth suffers in a housing crisis.

Some residents will move on before many of the planned changes take place and be replaced by those willing to embrace the new landscape.

Others are there for the long haul.

“This was to be our final resting place,” Bev Dornan said.

“But we are now, beyond that, very much aware about how environmentally sensitive this foothills area is.

“The more we learn, the more we want to keep this area intact – for our grandsons and their futures.”

The EPA is considering the public submissions with advice expected in coming months.

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