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Two-storey shock for Subi
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The Town Planning Appeals Tribunal has upheld the owner's objection to the Subiaco decision to refuse approval. The tribunal members were Mr P. McGowan president, Mr J. G. Jordan (senior member) and Mr E. R. McKinnon (ordinary member). But Subiaco is now complaining about the tribunal to Planning Minister Alannah MacTiernan and asking other local councils to join the fight. Subiaco says its policies have been overturned and a dangerous precedent has been set - at a cost of $18,000 for this case. It says: "It concerns the council that the tribunal should approve a dwelling that is contrary to two of the city's key policies and is a dwelling that the city considers to be the very type which the scheme was engineered to prevent. "The decision has effectively disabled the policies and the function they were intended to fulfil and has created a most undesirable precedent as to what is and what is not considered to have an adverse impact on adjoining residential sites or the general amenity of the locality. "These issues need to be raised with the minister and the tribunal to provide the city with direction on how to protect the character which makes Subiaco the special place it is. "If the city continues to rightly refuse unsuitable applications based on key policies, and the tribunal continues to disregard these policies and to uphold appeals, the city will waste valuable resources fighting what is a losing battle." In March, Geoff Gishubl's request to demolish an old house and build the two-storey house was refused by Subiaco council because he had "not shown that the house would not have any adverse impact on any neighbouring properties or the streetscape". The council also said the building would rise above the height limit for an R20 zone. A report by Dale Page, a Subiaco planner, said: "The front wall would be 6.7m, 700mm above the limit. "The upper floor would cover 29% of the lot area, 4% more than the limit. "The height of the front walls and the design of the front of the house would give it a scale and proportion at odds with the adjoining buildings and prevent it from fitting comfortably in the established streetscape." Mr Gishubl said the immediate neighbours had not objected to his plans and the new house would not have adverse impact on the streetscape because Megalong Street had no particular character but included many housing designs built over many years. The council sees the tribunal decision as a major jolt to its policy. It has written to Ms MacTiernan asking for a meeting including her, Subiaco council and the Town Planning Appeal Tribunal. It says the council wants to outline the "negative and disabling effect of this decision on the city's planning policies and the objectives and built outcomes that the policies are intended to achieve". The council had commissioned an artist's impression of the proposed house in an attempt to convince the tribunal of how disruptive it would be to the streetscape. The tribunal refused the Subiaco argument. It said the council was trying to insist a house take the same form as others in the street, the very point which the tribunal rejected last year in the case of Moullin v Town of Cottesloe. It ruled that just because a building was different from others in a street, that did not automatically mean it had an adverse impact on the streetscape. The tribunal decided the relevant streetscape was the whole of Megalong Street, not merely the northern end, as argued by Subiaco. The tribunal said the whole street was involved, not just the north end, irrespective of zoning differences and the physical barrier to vehicles that divided the street into two zones. Subiaco has told Ms MacTiernan: "The tribunal has disregarded the city's policy which relates solely to the preservation of established streetscape qualities. "Instead, they relied solely on clause 42 (1) (b) in making their decision and decided the scale and design of the proposed dwelling were not detrimental to the streetscape character and that discretion should be exercised to permit the second storey as proposed." The architect of the Gishubl house said: "We agree with what Subiaco is trying to do in areas where the streetscape is distinctive and important. "But the council needs to be flexible when it applies its policies. "This house would not belong in a heritage area, but in Megalong Street there is such a mixture of building designs that it will have no adverse impact." He said the house on the 490sqm block needed two-storeys to provide the accommodation needed for a modern family in the western suburbs. It would have a large entry with gallery/void space over, TV room/office, large kitchen/dining/living, laundry and powder room, alfresco and entertaining areas, double garage, below-ground cellar option, and, upstairs, a bedroom with en suite bathroom, two bedrooms, bathroom, toilet, second living room and gallery with northern aspect. |
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