Rowe Group Town Planners and Urban Designers are experts in taking large scale projects through from initial concept to completion, however their extensive work in Perth’s rapidly growing north-east corridor has demanded an even more specialised approach.
The Group recently celebrated 30 years in the industry and is the name behind some of the state’s most iconic projects like the Raffles Hotel Redevelopment in Applecross and creation of the Port Bouvard residential estate.
Rowe Group is now playing a leading role delivering much-needed residential and industrial land supply in the north-east corridor, Perth’s fastest growing metropolitan sub-region, and which includes North Ellenbrook, Bullsbrook North and Bullsbrook South.
The company is facilitating the delivery of some 15,000 residential dwellings supported by local education, commercial and employment facilities. In addition, Rowe Group is working across several industrial areas comprising some 655 hectares in and around the recently upgraded Stock Road and Tonkin Highway extension.
Rowe Group director Rod Dixon explains while demand for new residential land and more affordable housing supply in Perth is very high, development in the north-east corridor has been slowed by infrastructure delivery which hasn’t kept pace with growth, in particular around road planning, and water and sewage services.
“The State and Federal Governments both contributed to the extension of the Tonkin Highway and that’s now built, and people can head straight up from Ellenbrook past Muchea,” he explains.
“They've also co-funded the upgrade of Stock Road from the Tonkin Highway across to the Great Northern Highway.
“The land north and south of Stock Road is all earmarked for industrial development, but, for example, water and sewer servicing needs to catch up.
“Many of the 15,000 residential lots we are involved with between North Ellenbrook and Bullsbrook are not going to have access to sewer services in the short term.
“It’s problematic because despite land being identified for urban residential use, we need to demonstrate that it can be serviced by infrastructure to get approvals in place and therefore start work.
“If we can’t do that, we need to show there's an interim solution so we can work with service providers, get some stages of the project underway, have housing released to assist supply, have employment land or industrial land released, and know that in the coming few years, the infrastructure agencies like Main Roads WA or Water Corp will have completed their planning and construction work and been able to catch up.
“On occasion this can require developers needing to consider pre-funding some work and explore options to get things moving, otherwise we face an inability to meaningfully address land supply at scale and obtain the required subdivision approvals.
“Rowe Group continues to liaise at the top level, working collaboratively with Government to identify and get short term solutions approved.
“If you take Bullsbrook South as an example, it is capable of obtaining planning and other approvals, so essentially there are no other constraints to starting the project once structure planning is completed, other than reticulated sewer provision, and we’re working with stakeholders to gain support for an interim solution for that.
“We could get, as an example, two and a half thousand lots for Bullsbrook South moving quite quickly.”
Mr Dixon says given the scope and complexity of the work, Rowe Group has had to bring new expertise to its team of planning and design professionals beyond what traditional projects have needed.
They include high-level advisors and strategists to work with Governments and their agencies.
“These north-east corridor projects have required a broader understanding of a whole range of issues,” he explains.
“For example, at North Ellenbrook a new estimated $100 million interchange is required on the Tonkin Highway.
“The interchange is a project funded in Western Australia in the 2022-2023 Federal budget ($50 million), and the WA State Budget has also committed $25 million. The landowners or developers are to also contribute $25 million to the proposed interchange, so the infrastructure item is then fully funded.
“The work to achieve this has demanded expertise in drafting a business case; assisting the case for the Tonkin Highway interchange that the landowner/developer group could then put to Government.
“There are collaborative ways to solve these infrastructure challenges and it's not just for affordable urban residential land supply, we're also talking about substantial planned employment land, where similarly there are servicing constraints delaying approvals. At Rowe Group we continue to look at ways to work with agencies and approvals providers as the north-east corridor and City of Swan in particular faces significant growth pressure.”
