A Rail to Nowhere - on the absence of strategy around Joondalup's stations

Set on a high street that already has a modest, mixed use commercial centre, one may argue that Bayswater Railway Station already has much more to recommend it as an area that's 'ripe for infill' than any of the City of Joondalup's satellite stations.

Area directly across from Bayswater Station.

So now all City of Bayswater have to do is draw a 400m circle around the station platform and rezone all that area R60 and then draw another one to 800m and colour that R40, right? Of course not! What a ridiculous suggestion and obviously not what they are going to do.

Image from Bayswater's detailed Structure Plan document

What they're actually doing - following extensive community engagement - is creating a detailed and staged structure plan, taking into account all the elements the area will need to create a Transit Oriented Development where the community can live, work and play. So much thought is going into it, that they are even relocating an historic tree. They are also engaging in a partnership with State Government to upgrade Bayswater Train Station.

Circa 2009 - Circles on a Map. How HOAs were picked.

Yet - as far as I can tell - circles on a map was pretty much the extent of the planning that went into rezoning the stations around Joondalulp's current HOAs. No precinct planning, no demographic, social, environmental or economic impact studies, no traffic assessment studies, no-ped shed analysis to confirm that the areas within those 800m are actually safe and walkable, no State/ Local Government partnership for our station precincts and absolutely no plans to improve these areas to meet the needs of the increased population that infill brings. As the City's own Local Housing Strategy states:

What stays the same:

• Existing public infrastructure, for example, roads, verges, parks, public access ways and schools are not proposed to be changed through this strategy. I could go on to point out all the ways the State's Development Control Policy 1.6, (the document which outlines exactly how to enact planning that supports Transit Oriented Development), appears to have been treated with utter disregard. But I think by now you should be getting the point.

And the point is this: when you look at the stations that the HOAs capture: in particular Warwick, Greenwood, Whitfords and Edgewater they are not activity centres or places where people live, work and play. For the most part they are just stations next to car parks next to residential zoning with very little amenity and no current plans to make them function as Transit Oriented Developments. And if you think that the recent HOA Review will fix this, think again! No doubt in an attempt to post-justify the rezoning that these areas received the first time around, the consultants have rebadged them as 'Transit Place Types', but even they cannot formulate a merit for these areas. Instead their report lamely states: "Whilst currently non-activity centres, this Place Type has the potential to evolve into District

Activity Centre Place Types through the redevelopment of car parking areas over time at

which time the City may require a LDP is prepared..."

Could these areas be candidates for Transit Oriented Development? Yes! But that would take the kind of structure plans and vision that is currently going into Bayswater's infill strategy and I don't see any signs of that happening. Do you? Instead, it's just another round of colouring in maps to different residential codings. It's time we ratepayers demanded more.

Yes! The City of Joondalup has been charged by the State to meet infill targets. That currently means around 10,000 new dwellings in suburbia by 2050. Some of this can and should go near stations. But we have 30 years! Surely a smarter way to achieve this target would be through a series of staged structure plans around each of our stations? If other Cities can do it, so should we.