Bayswater Mayor Filomena Piffaretti says she has zero confidence in the property developers moving on the Galleria Shopping Centre without imposed timelines on the delayed redevelopment.
City of Bayswater Mayor Filomena Piffaretti says she has zero confidence in the property developers moving on the Galleria Shopping Centre without imposed timelines on the delayed redevelopment.
Ms Piffaretti took aim at what she described as a flawed planning system that allowed development applications to remain active indefinitely without incentives to progress work during a planning meeting this morning.
Vicinity Centres and joint venture partner Perron Group first gained approval to undertake the mammoth $350 million redevelopment of the Galleria Shopping Centre in Morley back in 2016.
The redevelopment has gone through multiple iterations and was officially shelved in 2019 due to weak retail market conditions.
Today, the Development Assessment Panel waved through minor changes to the development application but heard strong push back from the local government mayor against a backdrop of brewing community frustration.
During the meeting, Ms Piffaretti attempted to amend one of the conditions to impose a timeline on substantially commencing part of the project but was voted down.
She argued there needed to be an incentive for Vicinity to get work underway, pointing to the lack of activity on the site from one of the city’s biggest rate payers.
“If we allow this development application to sit here active forever, I have zero confidence from what I’ve seen that this will actually happen,” Ms Piffaretti said.
The DAP members confirmed Vicinity’s stance that substantial commencement – required within four years of development application approval- had occurred through the developers relocating a Water Corporation drainage basin at the site.
Ms Piffaretti disputed the notion that substantial works were underway.
“You just have to have a look at the site, nothing has commenced,” she said.
“I’m really disappointed that we will not have a mechanism that is recognised under our planning system that will hold people like Vicinity to account and incentive them to actually commence work on a project that was initially approved in 2016.”
The panel members sympathised with Ms Piffaretti’s position but voted against her amendment seeking to impose a timeframe.
Vicinity and Perron declined to comment.
