THE determination of College Grove residents to keep their suburb a peaceful, semi-rural place to live has made an impact at a City of Bunbury council meeting last night.
Council voted to keep the current zoning of Lot 70 Winthrop Avenue, College Grove at low density, removing the potential for high-density development on the vacant lot.
The City was approached by developer Alliance Housing to build an affordable housing development on the piece of land.
The proposed development would consist of about 30 single storey dwellings.
But residents feared a rezoning application could lead to the construction of high density housing.
They created a Facebook group called College Grove Action Group to discuss the issue.
College Grove resident Carly Stone said the majority of the group was not opposed to development, but they did not want to see the land jam-packed with infrastructure.
Last night, council also voted to support the disposal of the lot subject to the following conditions:
- The current zoning of R15 is to remain with conditional opportunity to increase to R20 based on acceptable development concept plans;
- The preparation of a development concept plan for the site addressing issues of traffic management, environmental impacts and other relevant sub-division conditions including the identification of an overall building envelope;
- Final sale price to be determined once decontamination plan is completed and costs of implementation known;
- Site remediation costs are to be borne by the purchasers.
Council noted the residents’ opposition to high-density development as well as a petition which was submitted by the residents outlining their opposition.
City of Bunbury Mayor Gary Brennan said he was happy the matter had now been dealt with and thanked the residents for their submissions and representations in response to the Council’s invitation for public comment.
“Council was very pleased to receive the level of interest in this matter." Mr Brennan said.
