Every local government in Western Australia has a local planning scheme to govern the use, development and protection of its land, supported by current and future needs.
The City of Fremantle’s Local Planning Scheme No. 4 covers land in the Fremantle local government area. It classifies land into zones and provides provisions that affect how land can be used and developed.
The City’s planning scheme has different zonings that cover a diverse range of land uses within each area. For example, Wray Avenue and South Street in Hilton are zoned as local centres while O’Connor is largely zoned for industrial uses. Many suburbs in the City Fremantle are zoned for residential use while other places like Queen Victoria Street and South Terrace are zoned for mixed uses.
From time to time it is necessary to make changes to the local planning scheme in order to bring it in line with strategic objectives, new state government legislation and policies, or the community's changing needs. This is called a scheme amendment and allows the City to improve the function of the scheme and respond to changes in particular areas.
Changes or updates to the planning scheme can include:
Council regularly initiates planning scheme amendments sometimes upon request of landowners or the Minister for Planning, however any person can request an amendment. Anyone considering applying for an amendment is encouraged to contact the City’s Strategic Planning team prior to commencing.
Community consultation is an essential part of the process for any proposed amendments to the City’s Local Planning Scheme, giving you the opportunity to raise issues. There is a detailed process for this, which requires the Western Australian Planning Commission and the Minister for Planning to consider both the submissions and the amendment before the final decision is made.
You can see the steps involved in the consultation process for planning scheme amendments in the process below.
In general, the Fremantle Council does not support a change of zoning, residential density coding or building height limit for an individual lot, or other small area, especially where request is independent of a broader Scheme review. A modification to the planning requirement of a small area of land in isolation to the wider locality is sometimes referred to as ‘spot rezoning’.
‘Spot rezoning’ will generally only be supported if the particular site-specific circumstances are unique, the requested rezoning/rule change is of a special or urgent nature, and the resultant development will not adversely affect surrounding areas.
Find out what current scheme amendments are being advertised at mysay.fremantle.wa.gov.au
Contact us on 08 9432 9999 or email planning@fremantle.wa.gov.au
