So Vodafone took its proposal to the State Administrative Tribunal, and within a day, it was approved - subject to conditions. The $150,000 tower will begin the development stage later this year. The Vera Street and Meltham Station projects Months later, the City of Bayswater received an application for a 28-dwelling apartment block on Vera Street. The City of Bayswater rejected the proposal on the basis it was not in keeping with the "Morley Activity Centre Structure Plan", which recommended any development under consideration should fit the characterisation of its neighbourhood.

After the Joint Development Assessment Panel also rejected the proposal, the developer took their case to the State Administrative Tribunal, who asked JDAP to reconsider - and they did. Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage Director General Gail McGowan detailed just how the Development Assessment Panel (DAP) was able to make the back-flip. "Like local councils, DAPs can only make decisions in accordance with the applicable local planning scheme and policies," she said. “Public consultation is undertaken by local governments - when required in the local planning scheme - for development applications submitted to a DAP. "Only one presentation against the Vera Street application was made at the original JDAP meeting.”

However while the Vera Street development didn't have a huge amount of community opposition, it was in contention with local density codes set out by City of Bayswater officers, who knocked it back for this reason. But the city officers' objections didn't seem to matter, and the project was given the green light. And just months earlier, a private developer put forward the controversial "Meltham Station Precinct Structure Plan", which would see density up to six storeys high built within 800 metres of the local train station. The proposal was expected to bring in some 5000 new residents, and after five years of knockbacks by the council, an improved version of the plan was approved by the Western Australian Planning Commission. WAPC chair Eric Lumsden said it considered the proposal on its individual merits and in association with relevant planning policies.

“The Commission considered the Meltham Station Precinct Structure Plan in October 2017, five years after the City of Bayswater identified the need for more detailed planning to occur around the station as part of its 2012 Local Housing Strategy," he said. “The City of Bayswater’s recommendations were considered as part of the Commission’s overall deliberations. "The City also requested several modifications to the structure plan that were supported by the WAPC and contained in its schedule of modifications, including the identification of various sites for potential streetscape improvement. “Extensive community consultation was undertaken as part of the planning process and the WAPC heard deputations from people who made submissions both for and against the proposal. “An amendment to the City of Bayswater’s Town Planning Scheme No. 24 is required before the structure plan can be implemented."

And if the WAPC is correct, more community consultation is on the way. Why even ask? But last year, City of Bayswater Mayor Dan Bull raised an issue - why are you asking if you don't want to know? Mr Bull lashed the WAPC at the end of last year in regards to the decision, saying he was concerned the authority had established itself a reputation for out-of-touch decision making. "We saw it with their decision to ignore council and allow significant development adjacent to the Eric Single Bird Sanctuary," he said.

"We also saw it with the recent decision on a town planning scheme amendment that the city proposed to control the proliferation of out of scale, lookalike apartments through the city's Character Protection Areas, and now we've seen it with the Meltham Station Precinct Structure Plan. "Why bother consulting with the community and with council if you're going to ignore the feedback you receive. "This matter needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency." And it's a crossover of both the SAT and the WAPC that appear to have concerned Bayswater locals who, according to their local MP and mayor, feel the big agencies and authorities aren't listening to them when it comes to developments in their own backyards. WA's planning authorities have now granted - or nudged along - approval to three City of Bayswater projects which had initially been knocked back by the council and the local community.

The Meltham Station structure plan. Credit:Engage Bayswater Councils are 'losing their teeth' When Perth residents hear about a controversial development springing up in their area, the attention, and often the blame, regularly turns to local councils. Councils are often in charge of reading developers the riot act before giving the green light or knocking back any projects put before them, but according to Labor parliamentary secretary and member for Morley Amber-Jade Sanderson, it's become clear in recent years local governments seem to be losing their teeth. Councils can offer recommendations, conditions and management plans - but as Ms Sanderson says, developers are becoming less and less concerned with abiding by local government regulation as they find ways around local planning laws.

Morley MP Amber-Jade Sanderson with Premier Mark McGowan. "The Crimea Reserve phone tower was not in keeping with the City of Bayswater's policy on telecommunications towers, and the proponent was well aware of that," she said. "Their other option was to go to the SAT. "Ultimately it was just built into their cost of doing business if you like - that they'll end up at the SAT and they'll get a more favourable decisions." Ms Sanderson was prompted to bring up the issue in WA Parliament last week after receiving a frustrated letter from the City of Bayswater expressing their concerns about the SAT, and the sheer number of projects currently in development in their area at odds with local planning laws and the feelings of the community.

"It's frustrating for the community to engage at local government level in the development of those policies and processes, when they just get overridden at the SAT level," she told WAtoday. Ms Sanderson said the SAT's recent decisions had opened the door for other non-compliant development applications because developers only see local councils and the JDAP as "a part of the process", and push through to the SAT for their desired outcome. 'Floods' of complaints about the SAT Ms Sanderson said she had witnessed the Attorney General receive a "flood" of complaints over recent years in regards to decisions made by the SAT, and said a bit of detective work was able to pinpoint where the issue had stemmed from. If you've had anything to do with development or planning in WA, the name Judge David Parry will have popped up once or twice.

He is an expert in the town planning area and was appointed to SAT in 2003 - then named the Town Planning Appeal Tribunal. He eventually became a deputy president of the SAT and sat as a District Judge for five years. Judge Parry focused mainly on planning matters until early 2016, when he was not reappointed to the position by the previous government. Ms Sanderson said this decision had dire consequences - and they were made the most evident in the City of Bayswater. "There was no planning expertise in relation to the decision-making," she said.

"That has created a whole range of issues, not just in the City of Bayswater. "The Attorney General [said he] received floods of complaints before we won the election and after, from a whole range of stakeholders that the SAT planning division was out of step because it was making decisions without planning legal expertise." So after years of fighting for control of their own neighbourhood, Ms Sanderson said Morley and Bayswater locals should be happy to hear Judge Parry was reappointed to his post by Attorney General John Quigley in September last year. In his address to parliament on the matter, Mr Quigley said it was one of the first steps he made as the new Attorney General, and initially removing Judge Parry from his post had been a serious mistake. "I hope all local governments can expect some better decisions out of the SAT planning decisions, - as well as the developers," Ms Sanderson said.

"[Hopefully there will be] more consistency, and decisions that are based around planning law and not around other areas of law that those people had expertise in. "Local governments don't always get it right and they don't always do the right thing in terms of keeping and updating their planning codes and their planning policies, but in this instance the city had done that." Current Education Minister Sue Ellery raised concerns about the failure to re-appoint Judge Parry when she was in the opposition. Credit:Hansard Too little, too late? Two projects set to alter the landscape and amenity of Bayswater - in both arguably good and bad ways - will enter either the development or construction phase in coming months, and it's seeming more and more likely the area will pay the ultimate price for a lack of expertise within the SAT in recent years.

In a statement to WAtoday, Mayor Bull said while the council welcomed any improvement to the current SAT's decision-making process, it was important to move swiftly considering the damage already inflicted on some of Bayswater's local landmarks. "The city strongly believes that SAT's decision making process needs to take account of the impact of planning and development applications on local communities and the amenity of the area," he said. "It also needs to more effectively take local government planning policies into account. "The community needs a voice and the perception at the moment is that the decision-making is unaccountable and made irrespective of the impact on local people. "That needs to be remedied and any initiative that helps to redress the balance is to be welcomed."