COTTESLOE ratepayers and their mayor predict high-rise residential developments will dominate the beachfront in the future.
“The developers don’t want bars or restaurants because they reduce the value to potential (buyers),” SOS Cottesloe president Chris Wiggins said.
“Residents who are paying $1 to $3 million for an apartment don’t want a bar with noise, garbage collections, deliveries and smells.”
He said the Cottesloe beachfront risked becoming sterile like the Leighton, South Fremantle and Steve’s developments, and the Government decision failed to reflect residents’ wishes to keep a village-type atmosphere with a three- to five-storey limit.
Mayor Kevin Morgan said the six-storey Il Lido Restaurant development and eight floors at the Ocean Beach Hotel would cause adjacent heritage precincts to disappear under high-rise buildings.
“People are not going to sit there and look at the back end of these (higher) buildings for the next 20 years and not ask for the same concessions themselves,” Mr Morgan said.
Mr Barnett said most Cottesloe and western suburbs residents wanted beachside development.
However, he said profits from the extra storeys were unlikely to contribute to new public infrastructure west of Marine Parade, a stand-alone $15 million project proposed by the council that could be subject to a government takeover via the WA Redevelopment Authority.
“Developers don’t own the land on the ocean side,” he said. “That is government and council-controlled land, and there’s also a significant parcels of land both here and around Napoleon Street, which is WA government-owned land.”
Marine Parade could be moved, which is one of the council’s proposals for more alfresco dining, if the State took over the foreshore plan.
Council also argued that new residents and their visitors could park in adjacent streets.
“I can’t guarantee that everybody in an apartment here might not park on the street sometimes, but there will be parking provisions in the developments,” Planning Minister John Day said.