Workshop on Commercial Precinct well attended

“At the end of a busy day, we had positive feedback from many participants about the workshop process and I want to take this opportunity to thank all who gave up their time to contribute to the dialogue,” said  Fremantle Ports Chief Executive Officer, Kerry Sanderson.

 “It was very pleasing to see the willingness of people to contribute more than 7 hours of their Saturday to this process.”

Kerry Sanderson said about 200 people had accepted the invitation to participate in the workshop, which was designed and facilitated by consultation specialist, Associate Professor Janette Hartz-Karp of Murdoch University and her team.

Professor Hartz-Karp has facilitated major consultations such as Dialogue with the City and the Freight Network Review. To ensure transparency,  a  representative  Steering Committee was invited to oversee the process.

“The aim was to have people from the Fremantle municipal area making up about 50 percent of the participants, with the remainder from surrounding areas south to Hamilton Hill and Spearwood and east to the Kwinana Freeway.

Since the earlier consultation on this project, two further options have been developed by ING and participants were asked to comment on these.

The new options, both substantially reduced in scale, have been developed in response to earlier concerns about height  and view corridors. One has a maximum height of five levels. The other has a maximum of six levels but the increased height has enabled the removal of a central building to further open up the views to the port and to create more space around the two smaller heritage buildings .

The reduced height and bulk in the two new options put forward  has made possible through a reduction of between 10,000 square metres and 12,000 square metres of commercial office space, depending on which option.

Each of the proposals includes restoration and reuse of historic C Shed, the former immigration building and the adjacent amenities building, with the developer ING proposing to spend up to $12 million on these heritage buildings.

Workshop participants were asked to comment both on the options, the  scale and on some alternative architectural styles. The workshops included presentations covering all viewpoints and participants had the opportunity to ask questions. They were also asked  to say if they didn’t like any of the options and to make suggestions as to how they thought the options could be improved.

“As well as responding on these issues, people taking part were invited to put forward their priorities for such a development and  their thoughts on how they would like Fremantle to be in 2020,” Kerry Sanderson said.

“The feedback from Saturday’s workshop will be important  to arrive at a suitable final proposal for a Development Application which will be submitted to the WA Planning Commission via the Fremantle City Council. Further consultation will be undertaken as part of the Development Application process. There will also be the opportunity to view a three dimensional model of the proposal at that time.”