A DEVELOPER’S agreement to reduce the size of a proposed five-star resort at Frenchman Bay has been a rare win for Albany City Council.
Planning for the resort development will proceed after an agreement was reached as a result of the State Administrative Tribunal mediation between the City of Albany and Frenchman Bay Pty Ltd.
But it could be up to 18 months before the $68 million development returns to Council for final planning approval.
Frenchman Bay Pty Ltd spokesman Henry Dykstra said development acceptance was only the first step in the process.
“We got our architect to go back to the drawing board, and we were able to come up with a more compact design that achieves the 100 units, the café/restaurant and function centre,” he said.
“It is somewhat reduced in scale, but appropriate for that location.
“We are happy with the outcome. Obviously there is a string of conditions included in the planning approval.”
Mr Dykstra said fine-tuning of the revised design and ensuring the conditions, which included deep sewer design and management plans, was “do-able”.
The developers would then determine the commercial feasibility of the resort plan.
“Speaking for the developers, Nick and Pam Pagano, they are confident and are keen to proceed,” he said.
“This is the first big hurdle in a process.
“Without planning approval in place, there was no point in doing other things.”
Mr Dykstra said he was happy with the SAT mediation process which provided a regulated environment to enable a fair hearing for both sides.
The mediation resulted in the agreement for a reduction in the bulk of the buildings through the loss of undercroft parking and smaller accommodation units.
“We scaled the application back as a building bulk quite significantly. We still achieved the 100 accommodation units,” Mr Dykstra said.
“The fundamental changes were the removal of the undercroft car parking from the buildings, which meant the car parking now sits outside the building, which is not uncommon for holiday accommodation resorts anyway.”
Some of the original units over 200sqm have been reduced to about 115sqm.
“All in all, that has resulted in a significant reduction in building bulk and building footprint,” he said.
“In some parts of the site, we’ve lowered the development to single-storey, and in other parts retained the two-storey, but in no part do we reach three-storey.”
Mr Dykstra said the development would now meet Council requirements by not imposing itself on the beachfront or from the sea.
The scaled-down version of the resort by an independent planning consultant was accepted by Albany City Council at a closed-door meeting on October 13.
City planning officer Graham Bride said the agreement by the developer to accept changes to its plans had ended the dispute, taking the matter out of the City’s hands.
The developer now has two years to progress its plans for the resort, which will include undertaking a variety of environmental studies and liaison with the Water Corporation about the future of a sewer to Frenchman Bay.
Mr Bride said the plans, which should not change from that agreed through the SAT mediation, would then have to be assessed for planning approval.
SAT was called on to intervene in the dispute by the developer when Council rejected the $68 million development in May.
Bulk and scale of the original proposal on the former caravan park site concerned councillors and Goode Beach residents.
Two and three-storey units were also condemned for their visual impact on the area, while locals were concerned that permanent accommodation would be included as the project progressed.
Plans for the resort were initially put to Council in 2006.
Some councillors considered the omission of a caravan park from the site in a decision to change its use by rezoning from Holiday Accommodation-Caravan Park as unlawful.
The development site is on one of two titles owned by the developer that once included a caravan park, chalets and a tearoom.
Overlooking Whalers Beach and the remains of historical Norwegian whaling buildings, it has been vacant since 2008 when buildings were demolished.