Choppy Passage for $400m Gateway to Busy Perth Marina

The two-tower second stage of a $400-million project that would provide a gateway to Perth’s landmark Hillarys boat harbour is facing a choppy approvals passage after a senior council planner recommended the development be opposed. Perth-based Locus Property has filed plans for Stage 2 of the project with the WA Planning Commission. The $240-million stage comprises 87 apartments and 1500sq m of retail floorspace in one building of 11 levels and another of eight on a 6385sq m block across Whitfords Avenue from the marina. City of Joondalup acting planning and community development director Cathrine Temple has recommended that the city agree to tell the WAPC it does not support Locus’s scheme. A report by Temple presented at a briefing session for the City of Joondalup mayor and councillors this week said the plans “do not align with the expected built form, bulk and scale, pedestrian interface and urban design outcomes for the locality”. “The proposed building height and plot ratio are inconsistent with that expected for a local centre of this nature and would undermine the established activity centre hierarchy,” the report said. Locus has lodged its plans under the state’s significant development pathway that since March 2024 under Part 11B of WA’s Planning and Development Act has allowed assessment of complex proposals worth more than $20 million. At the briefing session, Temple told councillors that had the application been presented to the city or to WA’s Metro Outer Development Assessment Panel there would have been no discretion to approve the scale of development proposed. “And so the only pathway that currently exists for this application to be contemplated at the density proposed is through the Part 11B pathway,” she said. ▲ A rendering of the lower floors of the second stage of Locus’s Hillarys gateway project. Joondalup councillor Phillip Vinciullo, whose South West ward encompasses Locus’s Hillarys site, told the briefing session the project had a “significant shortfall” of parking. “And it’s opposite a marina and arguably one of the busiest places in the northern suburbs,” he said. The boat harbour, 28km north-west of the Perth CBD, is home to a yacht club, restaurants, bars, shops, accommodation, artificial beach, the state aquarium and a Rottnest Island ferry terminal. The harbour is Perth’s third-most-visited tourist destination, behind the CBD and the historic port city of Fremantle. The WAPC referred the application to the city on December 19 with a request for comments by February 25. At the Joondalup briefing session the public had the opportunity to ask a question and make a presentation on the project. Nobody did. After the briefing session, Locus director Damian Long who was not at the meeting told The Urban Developer he would “work with the city all the way through and try to resolve any issues that they might have with the proposed plan” for stage 2. If approved, Stage 2 would make the joint project the largest in the Hillarys area since the marina was built there partly to service yachts competing in the failed 1987 America’s Cup defence 30km south at Fremantle. In May 2025, Stage 1 of the project , an 83-apartment building called Harbour Sorrento, was the first residential development to be approved under Part 11B of the Act. Located across Hepburn Road from where Stage 2 is proposed, that project was also opposed by the city. WAPC approval pending, Locus plans to start construction on Stage 2 in early 2027. The Urban Developer’s inaugural Perth Developer Symposium brings together the leading developers, investors and experts from the WA capital for a two-day property conference. Read more here.

Construction
Chris Thomson
Thu 12 Feb 26

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ConstructionChris ThomsonThu 12 Feb 26

Choppy Passage for $400m Gateway to Busy Perth Marina

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Thu 12 Feb 26