Satterley’s 110-year green tick to clear trees for Perth Hills estate

Australia’s biggest private land developer has 110 years to clear thousands of trees in the Perth Hills to make way for its long-fought North Stoneville housing estate.

Under its federal government environment approval, granted by a South Australian delegate to Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, Satterley Property Group can bulldoze an estimated 60,000 healthy native trees, some older than 200 years, across 200 hectares of land.

Property developer Satterley’s plan for a housing estate in the Perth Hills has been plagued by controversy.Credit: Google Maps

Despite the environmental green tick, Satterley’s development application still has a way to go before work can begin on the project, planning for which has spanned three decades.

WA’s State Administrative Tribunal is due to make a final determination in late 2025 over the plans to develop a townsite for 2800 people, three schools and a 193-hectare conservation area.

The North Stoneville development application 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.

But Save Perth Hills chair Peter Brazier said the developer had been granted what the action group understood to be the longest-ever approval under Australia’s Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

“Satterley’s proposed offset is 184 kilometres away from the Perth’s Hills, in the Wheatbelt shire of Williams,” he said.

“According to WWF, Carnaby’s cockatoos are already locally extinct in many parts of the central Wheatbelt, largely due to loss and fragmentation of habitat.

“A 110-year environmental approval, under an Act the federal government itself describes as outdated, and that involves bulldozing tens of thousands of healthy trees that provide crucial habitat for a species on the brink of extinction due to habitat loss, is deplorable.”

Brazier said Save Perth Hills and the Mundaring Shire Council had hopes there may be provision to revoke the delegate’s approval.

“In the absence of a revocation, Save Perth Hills are confident of solid grounds for a judicial review,” he said.

Satterley declined to comment.

The WA Greens backed calls for Plibersek to reverse the decision to approve clearing at Satterley’s North Stoneville site.

WA Greens MLC Brad Pettitt said he understood there was power for the minister, in limited circumstances, to revoke an approval via section 145 of the Act if the minister believed the action “will have a significant impact that was not identified in assessing the action”.

Pettitt said there was scope to revoke the decision, given the loss of urban tree canopy, inadequacy of the offsets program and outdated environmental surveys taken seven years ago before Perth’s record-breaking hot summers and significant dry spells caused a forest collapse in the south-west.

“North Stoneville site was inappropriate in 1991 when it was first proposed; threats to biodiversity and bushfire risk have only added to concerns in the decades since,” he said.

“To build here would put future residents at serious risk of climate-related impacts, especially bushfires, not to mention the destruction of hundreds of hectares of endangered Black cockatoo and Chuditch habitat.

“In 2014 there was a catastrophic bushfire in the area that destroyed 57 homes, and in 2020 the proposal was rejected for failing to properly mitigate future bushfire risk.

“It is a testament to the influence of property developers in this state that this project is still on the table after more than thirty years of community opposition.”

In October 2024, the Shire of Mundaring pleaded with Plibersek to reverse her approval of the controversial housing estate.

Shire President Paige McNeill wrote to the minister formally requesting she reconsider her approval of the structure plan for the 535-hectare town site over concerns she used outdated environmental surveys.

However, Pilbersek’s hands may be tied, with national environmental protection laws only allowing her to revoke approvals in the case of serious contraventions or if proponents wilfully withhold information about potential environmental impacts in their applications.

Save Perth Hills is planning a community rally in Mundaring on February 23 in the lead up to the state and federal elections to call on Plibersek to revoke Satterley’s environmental approval.

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