South of the river tavern gets tick of approval despite fuss

Perth Now

06-05-2025

State planners have approved the long sought-after expansion of Kwinana Marketplace and along with it a new, albeit controversial, watering hole that will be located in an area once designated purely for retail shopping.
In granting approval last week, decision-makers also said the tavern could help create a safer street along Gilmore Avenue because it would include increased outward-facing CCTV cameras.
'It's very well located in the context,' Metro Outer Development Assessment panel member Karen Hyde said in response to views that another tavern so close to Kwinana Local would result in increased antisocial behaviour.
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'It provides a function which can be reasonably associated with shopping and retail, and create something of an entrance and additional surveillance to pedestrian activities, and offers an extra evening activity.'
The owner of The Kwinana Local and other Chisham Avenue businesses told the panel last Thursday it was wrong to locate the new tavern in a designated retail precinct because it will split the destination and dining function away from Kwinana's 'main street' of Chisham Avenue.
'We are the people that brought a couple properties on Chisham Avenue . . . we liked the vision of the city to establish a main street with entertainment, it made a lot of sense to us,' Sullivan Property Consultants owner Brian Sullivan said.
'You are moving that entertainment precinct away, you are splitting it in two, and you will create, potentially, a dead main street.
'It is not better for the city and it is certainly not better for the residents to have the entertainment precinct split in two and have a weak, less vibrant and less workable main street.'
Allerding & Associates Urban Planning owner Steve Allerding held a similar position on the 'inappropriate' move to build a tavern in the retail precinct.
'The proposal has the potential to undermine the purpose by creating a new entertainment destination,' he said.
'Through the city's various planning documents, Chisham Avenue has consistently been described as the main street to be promoted to consolidate uses related to entertainment and eating activities.
'We don't believe this is an appropriate development in its current form.' An artist's impression of how the proposed beer garden and outdoor seating at Kwinana Marketplace could look. Credit: Supplied / Lateral Planning
Speaking on behalf of the shopping centre redevelopment, Lateral Planning's Sean Fairfoul reassured the panel the pub's planned location would not undermine the city's masterplan for the Kwinana town centre.
'In terms of the submitter's concern that the main street is going to be moved, relocated or fragmented, we don't share that belief,' he said.
'The scheme and the masterplan do make it quite clear that whilst there are precincts it is not the only location for each individual use and there was to be a mix of uses throughout the precinct.'
A licensed restaurant, dining venues, shops, children's playground and an amusement centre will also all open in space created by the expansion, which spills into 19 existing car bays.
The redevelopment will increase the size of Kwinana Marketplace by 406sqm.