By Chris Thomson | posted on January 11, 2018
A SILVER BULLET that could deliver a tourist resort for Vancouver Peninsula and allay environmental concerns at Goode Beach has arrived courtesy of an application for a 25-unit holiday retreat at the defunct Frenchman Bay Caravan Park.
As opponents ramp up a campaign to stop a 51-unit five-star resort at Goode Beach, The Weekender can reveal that Harley Dykstra Town Planners has applied to build 24 holiday units and a ‘caretaker’s commercial building’ at the jaded van park site.
Recently, Frenchman Bay Association President Tony Kinlay (‘Goode plan, wrong place’, 19 October, 2017) and Traditional Custodian Lynette Knapp (‘A mighty Wagyl breathes here’, 23 November, 2017) said a resort at the former van park would be better, environmentally and culturally, than one at Goode Beach.
Yesterday, University of Western Australia Chair in Biodiversity Steve Hopper agreed.
“From an environmental and cultural heritage viewpoint, provided all necessary assessments are undertaken and controls implemented, that site has a number of advantages and fewer disadvantages than the Goode Beach proposal,” said the Goode Beach resident, who today will co-host a briefing by opponents of the Goode Beach resort for media outlets at Lake Vancouver.
“It’s already cleared, so a development with a strong environmental ethic would actually create an opportunity to restore habitat for threatened fauna and remove pernicious environmental weeds on the edge of the national park.
“In relation to wildfire, there’s no need for additional roads across wetlands, and all the disruption of amenity that would occur with the Lake Vancouver development would not apply there.”
An online petition launched last week to protest the Goode Beach plans attracted more than 1800 signatures from around the world in its first two days.
In 2015, Harley Dykstra achieved approval of a development plan for the van park site on behalf of West Perth-based MTK Ventures Pty Ltd.
After MTK sought 30 units, including 10 unrestricted-stay ones, 28 objections were lodged.
The request for unrestricted-stay units was withdrawn, and Albany city councillors unanimously endorsed a maximum of 25 units, including the caretaker’s building.
Also unanimously endorsed was a provision regarding the need for any on-site effluent disposal to be referred for Department of Health consideration.
A further 46 public submissions supported the project, which Harley Dykstra had called the ‘Frenchman Bay Retreat’.
A development sign is yet to be placed at the site, but City of Albany Executive Director Development Services Paul Camins confirmed the project would be advertised “soon” for public comment.
If approved, the application would be the final stage of a protracted process that in 2009 saw Dykstra Planning unsuccessfully apply for 100 units on the van park site on behalf of an entity called Frenchman Bay 5 Star Resort Unit Trust.
In November, city councillors were set to vote on whether a structure plan for the Goode Beach resort was acceptable to them.
But the plans were pulled, probably until February, after the Department of Fire and Emergency Services raised concerns over emergency access to the La Perouse Court site (Goode Beach plans pulled, 23 November, 2017).
