Frequently Asked Questions

Come along to one of the drop in sessions below where City officers will be available to answer any questions you might have about the draft ACP and/or proposed Amendment No. 61.

• Wednesday 22 May, 2-4pm: John McGrath Pavilion, 97 Hensman St, South Perth
• Saturday 8 June, 1-3pm: South Perth Bowling Club, 2 Mends St, South Perth
• Wednesday 19 June, 6-8pm: South Perth Bowling Club, 2 Mends St, South Perth
• Saturday 6 July, 1-3pm: South Perth Civic Centre Reception Room, Cnr Sandgate St & South Tce, South Perth

Alternatively you can contact a strategic planning officer at the City to ask any questions you may have or to arrange a one-on-one meeting. The Strategic Planning team can be contacted via email on enquiries@southperth.wa.gov.au or via phone on 9474 0777.

If you have a question or would like further information or clarification, you can submit your question online and a City of South Perth staff member will answer it either publicly or privately, depending on the nature of the question.

• Register or sign in. Before you can provide your feedback online, you will need to create a username and password for Your Say South Perth. If you have already registered, you can sign in here. Please take a moment to check if your user details are up to date, as the City requires certain information to be able to report fully to Council and the WA Planning Commission.
• Complete the online feedback forms. The feedback forms are organised by ‘element’ so you can comment on as many or as few elements as you are interested in. Read more about this below.
• Send an email to enquiries@southperth.wa.gov.au
• Send your submission by mail to City of South Perth, Cnr Sandgate St and South Tce, South Perth WA 6151
• Hard copy feedback forms are available at the South Perth Civic Centre and South Perth and Manning libraries.

Your personal details will be kept confidential and feedback used for statistical and legislative purposes only.

The comment period on the South Perth Activity Centre Plan closes at 5pm, Monday 22 July 2019.

To streamline feedback and to make it easier for community members to comment on the topics that interest them, a feedback form has been developed for each of the 9 key elements, which correspond with the relevant summary sheet. This means you can choose which of the key elements you’d like to comment on. There is also a general feedback form, for feedback on other matters not covered by the Summary Sheets.

You can provide your feedback using the following feedback forms:

1. Land Use
2. Building Size (Height and Plot Ratio)
3. Podiums
4. Towers
5. Design Quality
6. Additional Development Potential and Public Benefits
7. Bicycle and Car Parking
8. Movement and Access
9. Public Realm

• General Feedback Form

The most useful feedback will include rationale or reasoning and appropriate alternatives to address the issue raised. For example if you think that the building height limit on a particular property should be changed, please tell us and suggest how the plan can be modified to respond. This allows the City to assess the comment and make a clear recommendation.

You can complete a hard copy feedback form which is available at the Civic Centre and the South Perth or Manning libraries. You can return your completed feedback form to the Civic Centre or via the post.

Whilst the online feedback form is the preferred method, you are welcome to make a written submission about the draft ACP and proposed Amendment No. 61. You can do this either via email at enquiries@southperth.wa.gov.au or via mail addressed to: City of South Perth, Cnr Sandgate St and South Tce, South Perth WA 6151.

All feedback that is received will be reviewed by the City’s Strategic Planning team and will be used to help inform any modifications to the documents before it is returned to the Western Australian Planning Commission for final consideration.

Yes, in order to complete the online feedback form, you must be a registered user here on Your Say South Perth. Registration only takes a moment and it means you can easily take part in future activities on this site and also be kept in the loop on this project.

If you have already registered, you can sign in here. Please check to see if your user details are up to date before you submit any feedback.

If you’d prefer not to do this, read about other ways to participate.

Yes, if you are having any technical difficulties registering or using the website, contact the City via email at enquiries@southperth.wa.gov.au or phone 9474 0777.

An activity centre is an area where there is a concentration of commercial, retail (including shopping, cafes, restaurants and bars) and residential land uses. Due to the land uses in activity centres they are also focal points in the transport network.

State Government planning policies encourage development in activity centres to improve services and business opportunities, increase housing close to jobs and services, and to improve the sustainability of the transport network by supporting walking, cycling and public transport.

The State Government has organised the activity centres within metropolitan Perth into a hierarchy, to inform and help coordinate the planning of these important areas. There are 50 activity centres within the central sub-region of Perth, with the central business district being the largest.

South Perth is classified as a district centre. District centres have a focus on servicing the daily and weekly needs of residents. They should aim to provide a local community focus and provide services, facilities and job opportunities that reflect the particular needs of their catchments. In South Perth, this includes recognising the location of the area adjacent to the Perth central business district.

An Activity Centre Plan (ACP) is a document that provides the guiding framework for the planning and development of an activity centre. An ACP sets out the strategic vision for an area and the statutory planning requirements for development. An ACP guides the types of land uses and the overall development (including built form) that is intended to occur within the activity centre. It can detail land uses, environmental assets, residential density, built form, infrastructure and access arrangements.

An ACP includes:

• An Executive Summary
• Part One implementation section, which contains the requirements against which development will be assessed
• Part Two explanatory section, which contains the background information and rationale for Part One
• Technical Appendices.

The draft South Perth Activity Centre Plan should be read together with proposed Town Planning Scheme Amendment No. 61 (Amendment No. 61). The two documents have been developed together and, once finalised and approved, they will provide the guiding framework (strategic vision and statutory framework) for the planning and development of the area.

The draft South Perth Activity Centre Plan will be required to be given due regard in determining development applications once finalised and approved. The requirements in Amendment No. 61 will become part of the City’s town planning scheme once the amendment is approved. 

The proposed town planning scheme amendment contains the key development requirements, including:

• Character area objectives
• Zoning, residential density coding and land uses
• Requirements that define the building envelope (building height, plot ratio, podium setbacks, podium height, podium site cover, tower setbacks, tower separation and tower maximum gross floorplate area)
• Requirements for the approval of additional height and plot ratio above the base limits.

The draft South Perth Activity Centre Plan provides objectives, explanation and background to support the requirements in the proposed amendment, as well as additional requirements that must also be considered when assessing development proposals.

The draft South Perth Activity Centre Plan is referred to in the City’s first draft Local Planning Strategy (LPS) which is currently out for public comment. The LPS is a high level document that identifies where more detailed plans, such as activity centre plans, are to be prepared. The LPS ensures that state government policy and previous decisions made by Council are reflected in the formulation of each activity centre plan.

The LPS includes a strategy to: Ensure each of the City’s activity centres achieve an appropriate mix of activity, employment, recreational, civic and cultural, and entertainment uses as well as increased levels of residential population to support the ongoing viability and function of each centre. The planning framework will ensure that sufficient non-residential floor space can be provided in each centre to meet forecast demand.

An action under this strategy is to: Adopt an Activity Centre Plan for South Perth which provides:

• A robust planning framework that reflects the centre’s role as an inner city activity centre
• A framework to manage development that accommodates forecast population and activity growth
• Guidance to improve movement and connectivity within and around the centre
• Guidance to improve streetscapes and public open space within the centre.

This map has been updated from the version approved by City of South Perth Council on 6 March 2019 to correct minor administrative errors. Please refer to the version of the map in Summary Sheet 2.

The City has prepared draft Local Planning Policy P321 ‘South Perth Activity Centre Competitive Design Policy’ to set out the processes and requirements for undertaking a competitive design process to satisfy design quality requirements in the draft ACP and proposed Amendment No. 61.

Undertaking a competitive design process is a necessary requirement for seeking the highest level of discretion available (Tier 2) under proposed Schedule 9B of Town Planning Scheme No. 6 (proposed to be introduced as part of Amendment No. 61). The draft policy sets out the processes and requirements for undertaking a competitive design process to assist in satisfying the applicable design quality criteria.

Local planning policies complement the Town Planning Scheme and provide guidance to the City and to the public on interpreting legislation and making decisions.  When assessing and determining development applications, the City and decision makers, including Development Assessment Panels, must consider the provisions and objectives of the policy.

You can provide feedback on Policy P321 here.

The City has established a Reference Group to provide the City and key stakeholders with an additional reference point for planning, development and place initiatives and activities in the ACP area. The group includes 17 members representing a diverse range of stakeholders with interests in the South Perth Station Precinct and immediate surrounding area.

The City and consultants, Shape Urban, will also work with the South Perth Station Precinct Reference Group to help refine the information provided to a randomly selected Community Panel to ensure that project history, key messages and background knowledge is adequately passed on to the newly formed Panel.

Both the Stakeholder Reference Group and the Community Panel will undertake a detailed discussion of the draft ACP and proposed Amendment No. 61 with the full support of a team of technical specialists.  This discussion will also include the outcomes of the public comment period.

At the end of this process, the two groups will make recommendations to the City of South Perth for any modifications to the draft ACP and proposed Amendment No. 61. The City is committed to taking the recommendations seriously and using them to help guide final improvements to the draft documents.

The Reference Group and Community Panel recommendations will supplement the feedback that the City receives through the public consultation period by actively engaging a group of stakeholders selected from local residents, landowners and business owners.

The Community Panel will be chosen based on age, gender, local residential and business representation as well as property location.  This group will reflect the community of South Perth and will help the City’s Strategic Planning team to translate broader community sentiment from a variety of perspectives in equitable and transparent way.

The Community Panel will bring together a randomly selected group of around 40 people. To achieve this number, invitations have been sent to around 7,000 randomly selected households across the South Perth area. The people who register to be part of the Community Panel will be pooled and another random sample will be taken to select the Panel to match the broad age profile of the South Perth area.

We strongly encourage expressing interest in being involved if your household receives an invitation.  This is an important opportunity to work with the City to make sure the draft ACP and proposed Amendment No. 61 best meet the needs of the existing and future community of South Perth.

Recruitment for the Panel will be handled independently by Deliberately Engaging Pty Ltd, who have been engaged through the City’s consultants Shape Urban. Shape Urban will be facilitating the Stakeholder Reference Group and Community Panel.

Yes. The draft ACP includes a requirement that “development shall not cast a shadow over more than 80% of any adjoining lot for more than 2 hours between 9am and 3pm on 21 June.” (draft ACP Part One, development requirement 4.3.3.4, page 25).

June 21 is the shortest day of the year and the sun follows its lowest path on this day, therefore casting the greatest shadow. This day is used as the point at which overshadowing is measured because on all other days of the year shadows will be smaller than they are on June 21.

The reason that only the adjoining lots are considered in the assessment of overshadowing is that lots further from the development site are generally impacted less than the adjoining lots. Therefore limiting the amount of overshadowing of adjoining lots also controls the amount of overshadowing of lots further from the development site.

The overshadowing requirement proposed in the draft ACP is more stringent than the current requirement in Schedule 9A of Town Planning Scheme No. 6 (Table B, Design Consideration 2) which states:

Shadow diagrams at noon on 21 June, are to be submitted demonstrating that the shadow cast by the portion of the building above the Building Height Limit, does not cover more than 80% of any adjoining lot.

The current overshadowing requirements of Table B only apply where a development proposes building height in excess of the building height limit, and applies only to that portion of the building above the building height limit. In addition, the current requirement only refers to shadowing at noon on 21 June. Conversely the proposed ACP requirement would apply to all proposed developments and refers to overshadowing caused by the entire building between 9am and 3pm on June 21.

Overshadowing is just one aspect of amenity that is addressed in the draft ACP and proposed Amendment No. 61. In addition to overshadowing, a number of the requirements at section 4.3 of part one of the draft ACP (page 22) address aspects of amenity including street interface, heritage, design quality, and detailing and materials.

The current population of the South Perth activity centre plan area is 2,675 people. This is forecast to grow to 4,750 people by the year 2031, and 7,500 people by 2041.

The City engaged expert consultants RPS to prepare a report on the potential for growth of the South Perth activity centre, including assessment of projections for population, employment, floor space, tourists/visitors, and retail expenditure. This report outlines the most likely growth trajectory for the area over the 25 years from 2016 to 2041.

The scenario testing and modelling undertaken for the draft South Perth Activity Centre Plan examines the full economic and social potential of the area. This evidence base informs planning for new infrastructure and development of controls on land use and built form that manage and shape the expected demand. These controls and the infrastructure and services that are developed then become constraints on development that shape the actual growth of the area over the life of the plan.

More information on the forecast growth of the activity centre plan area can be found in Part 2 of the draft South Perth Activity Centre Plan. The full Economic and Demographic Assessment report is attached to the plan as Appendix 1.