FAQs

Building Bayswater is your chance to share thoughts, ideas and expectations on how Council should respond to the challenges and opportunities of new development within the City of Bayswater, as well as to examine future housing types, design innovation and the interface between the public and private realm.

Building Bayswater will help inform the City’s Local Planning Strategy. It also provides a very real opportunity to involve the community in charting the future course for planning and development of the City.

A Local Planning Strategy will provide guidance and direction for land use planning, urban development and the future growth of the City of Bayswater. This strategy builds upon the recently developed Vision from the City’s Strategic Community Plan.

Essentially, it provides the contextual framework for the making, implementing and amending of the local planning scheme, structure plans, local development plans and local planning policies, as well as enabling consistency in decision-making when determining proposals to use, develop and/or subdivide land within the City.

The Local Planning Strategy will set out the City’s objectives for future planning and development and a broad framework by which to pursue those objectives.

It establishes key principles that will be used in considering land use and development in response to changes in population, housing, business, employment, transport, activity centres, community facilities and infrastructure.

The strategy will need to address the social, environmental, resource management and economic factors that affect, and are in turn affected by, land use and development.

By the year 2050, the Western Australian State Government anticipates that the population of Perth will rise to 3.5 million. In order to accommodate this population growth in an efficient and cost effective manner, the State Government has established a target for residential intensification within existing urban areas.

An increased population will require improved services and facilities, greater access to those facilities, and is likely to result in a greater number of people outside of the City of Bayswater visiting, using and accessing  those services and facilities.

The City of Bayswater has been set a target to provide an additional 15,800 dwellings by 2050 and the Local Planning Strategy will need to provide the framework to support this.

The Local Planning Strategy is also being developed to ensure that the strategy remains relevant and accords with the expressed vision in the Strategic Community Plan 2017-2027.

There will be a number of ways to get involved when Building Bayswater launches, with more information to be added in the coming weeks. Keep a look out for quick polls, questions and events, or register to stay informed.

You can also express your interest in hosting a Building Bayswater Focus Group.

A Building Bayswater Focus Group is your opportunity to be part of the process in the comfort of your own office, facility or club.

We know that it is not always easy to attend workshops and meetings that are organised at a time and a date that doesn’t suit, so Building Bayswater will come to you!

If you have an event, fete, school carnival, AGM, sports wind-up, awards night, festival or any other event planned in November, and would be willing to open your doors to the broader community of the City of Bayswater, we want to hear from you! 

It’s vitally important that we reach all corners of this wonderful City, to hear from as many diverse groups as possible.  If you think your group or organisation might be able to help, please express your interest in hosting a Building Bayswater Focus Group and we will be in contact with further information.

The Community Panel will be representative sample of individuals that reflect our community, randomly selected to form a panel which deliberates on the outcomes of the Community Engagement Campaign.

In this panel process, all inputs and outputs are fully transparent and available, and the randomly selected panellists are a selection of the very demographic affected by the decision.  In this way, the decisions made can be shown to be genuine and without any selection bias.

The panel will hear technical advice and feedback from key community groups where relevant.  The process will be undertaken in a fully transparent environment, being recorded and potentially undertaken in front of a public gallery. The panel will ultimately work together/deliberate and make a recommendation to the City. 

Recruitment and final selection of panellists for the Engagement Panel is a multi-step process commencing with the selection of an appropriately skilled consultant who is responsible for ensuring that the process is transparent and independent.  We have chosen to use Deliberately Engaging, an organisation that undertakes selection processes across the country http://deliberatelyengaging.com.au/

The Consultant uses a database of all addresses/names and then uses the random function in Microsoft Excel to select 10,000 individual addressees.  The 10,000 are invited to express interest in participating on the panel by registering.  Stratification goals are set including age, gender and location and then the interested registrants are sorted and filtered, again by the random function in Microsoft Excel, to ensure that the final selection includes the relevant number of people within each of the stratification categories.

Finally, the selected participants are advised.  Only in the few days before the Panel commences are the City and the Facilitators given the panellist details.  This is to ensure that the independence of the process is true right up until the panel start date, and also helps our facilitators to go into the Panel with no preconceived ideas.

‘Built form' essentially describes what a building looks like, its design, form, setbacks and architectural style and the location of the building on the land. It can include things such as placement of garages, street trees and heights.

Built form is not about having buildings all at the same height or size, but about the interaction between buildings and how they make people feel. It also includes how the buildings look and how the facades interact with the street, green space and other buildings, including those of significance to the heritage of the area.

A ‘land use’ is a type of activity (think an office or a café) that is allowed to occur on certain land.  We know what land use is permitted by looking at the ‘zone’ over the land, which is a description placed over land by State and Local Authorities.  The zone will also control what kinds of buildings can be constructed. Zones are used to develop land so that there is a balance of residential land, various employment opportunities, parks and recreational facilities. 

A study undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggests that by the year 2050, the Perth Metropolitan Region will have increased to a population of 3.5 million, compared to the current population of 2.14 million. The State Government proposes to deliver a substantial proportion of this population through redeveloping existing urban areas and making more efficient use of existing town centres. This proposal comes from a desire to reduce the current habit of developing for many kilometres to the north, south and east of the, at significant cost economically, socially and environmentally.

Redevelopment of existing urban areas, when planned correctly, can provide plentiful benefits in the form of increased population to support local businesses, reduce the use of cars for short trips whilst ensuring plenty of open space and community facilities. 

Height is an important part of built form. Height often increases closer to town centres as these are areas of greater activity and employment and taller buildings allow for more efficient use of those spaces to deliver that activity and employment. 

More height in some areas allows us to keep suburban built form in other areas.  Also, some people choose to live in town centres, whilst other choose the suburbs. This is a matter of preference, and that’s partially why you’re here - to help decide together what an appropriate level of height and built form is, and where.

The Local Planning Strategy will consider a number of factors including the future of housing, community facilities, transport, business, character and the environment within the City of Bayswater.  In delivering the Local Planning Strategy we will be looking to achieve the highest possible standard and improved access to amenities, with the help and advice of the community. 

If this is your first visit to Engage Bayswater, then simply click on the ‘Register’ button, create a username and provide a valid email address.

If you have previously participated, click on the sign in button and enter your username and password. 

Your comments will appear under your username, so consider choosing a username that is unidentifiable if you wish to comment anonymously.

The City of Bayswater will be convening a randomly selected panel of community members to participate in an intensive workshop early in 2018.  These community members will be provided with all the feedback received throughout the engagement process and will be asked to make recommendations to the Council based on the workshop process.  

Presentations to the Panel will be invited later in early December, and community or interest groups should register their interest in being involved.