By Chris Thomson | posted on October 19, 2017
A GOODE BEACH lobby group says the defunct Frenchman Bay Caravan Park site would be better for a five-star resort than Lot 660 La Perouse Road where the 51-unit project is controversially envisaged.
Frenchman Bay Association President Tony Kinlay said a strategic view of both the van park site and Lot 660 would confirm the former as the best for tourism development.
“The caravan park site would be ideal for the resort,” he said of the block at Whalers Beach that has languished with no tourists for more than a decade.
About two years ago, an application for a 30-unit resort at the van park was shelved after the association opposed its inclusion of 10 residential lots on the tourism-zoned site, sewerage plans and proposed sinking of bore holes.
“The owners of Lot 660 tick all those boxes,” Mr Kinlay said.
“They have 100 per cent tourism, a secondary sewer treatment works, and are prepared to fund the cost of a new reservoir with the Water Corporation.
“If only they owned that caravan park site, the association would be supportive of that being a resort.”
Mr Kinlay acknowledged the van park idea was “hypothetical” but said “it’s been quoted around Goode Beach”.
“It’s got fantastic views which they wouldn’t have from Lot 660,” he said.
“They wouldn’t disrupt our subdivision with traffic, and there’s a beach right there.”
Council candidate for Vancouver Ward Matt Benson-Lidholm said “the ducks would need to line up” for the idea to proceed.
“I don’t think it will be easy because both sites are obviously owned by different people,” he said.
He added the Lot 660 option was “not necessarily progress”, and “very much a retrograde step that’s fraught with dangers”.
“Over many, many years the tea rooms and the caravan park out there were very much an iconic part of tourism delivery in Albany,” the former state MP said.
“It was always a favourite spot to go on the weekend.
“It wasn’t lavish, it wasn’t five-star, it wasn’t anything more than a great place to go with family and friends to the waterfront and a great place for kids.”
Nicolette Mulcahy, vying to retain her Vancouver Ward seat, said she understood a “strong minority in excess of 40” Goode Beach residents supported a resort at Lot 660.
“I guess the greatest benefit of the caravan park site is that it would not impact on the local residents as much,”she said of the alternative.
“It would reduce the impact of through traffic, noise and use of the smaller residential precinct at Goode Beach.”
The third Vancouver Ward candidate, Tracy Sleeman, said the van park option was all well and good “but it’s not what’s on the table”.
“Not everyone out at Goode Beach is against this development,” she said, adding that a resort at Lot 660 would need to be environmentally sound to gain her support.
Vancouver Ward councillor John Shanhun did not return calls.
