Why we’re fighting to Save Smiths Beach... again.
By David Mitchell.
Back in the early 2000s, the community of Smiths Beach banded together to oppose a controversial plan for development. The local defiance became a statewide movement of people who fought to protect Smiths Beach.
The battle lasted several years but fortunately was successful. It led to clear guidelines about what would constitute reasonable and sustainable development at Smiths Beach. Planning frameworks were introduced into legislation to ensure any future development of one of WA’s most beloved coastal sites was appropriate for its uniqueness.
Unfortunately, the Smiths Beach Action Group has needed to be mobilised again over the past few years. The cause for our concern is another proposed development that flouts this same long-established legislation, and has progressed largely in the shadows, away from traditional approval channels.
This plan is being advanced through the State Development Assessment Unit (SDAU), a ‘temporary’ mechanism introduced during the COVID-19 period, which – for reasons unexplained – remains open to developers today. The SDAU is not bound to follow state or local planning laws, including those that apply to Smiths Beach.
In effect the SDAU allows the developer at Smiths Beach to bypass the agreed legislation, bypass the City of Busselton’s planning frameworks and bypass the community. The developer is effectively unrestrained to ask for anything they want, and the SDAU facilitates this process.
There are many ways in which this new proposal triggers alarm bells and contravenes the long-established legislation and other development rules for the site. You can read about them in more detail on the Issues page of this site.
Here are some of our biggest concerns:
Size and Position of the Development
The new proposal is 44% larger in land area than what is allowable under legislation and would extend the development envelope onto the ecologically sensitive western headland. This headland is currently approved as future National Park due to its high environmental values. The Environmental Protection Authority noted the need for it to be conserved because of the “unacceptable impact” any development would have on the exposed headland.
Enormous Concrete Seawall
A recently identified addition to the development proposal. At around 100m in length, up to 22m wide, up to 5m high and 2900m2 in area, it would all but destroy the western end of Smiths Beach – which is the highest activity and most family-friendly part of the beach.
In many ways, this seawall exemplifies the issues the Smiths Beach Action Group has with the proposed development and its passage through the SDAU.
It was only because of our FOI enquiries that we became aware of the seawall. It did not appear in any public documents until late 2024, and none of the proponents’ Environmental Review Documents have considered the seawall’s impact. Not a single study or investigation into the seawall’s impact on the coastline, the beach, sand movements and dune erosion has been made public, not one report!
The exact purpose of – and scientific reasoning for – a seawall has not been established. What is apparent is that its inclusion in the development would destroy a public beach only to allow for buildings to be constructed much closer to the coastline, bypassing established setback rules and opening up more land to increase revenues for the developer.
Farcically, the developer seems determined not to use the word ‘seawall’ publicly despite several documents being unearthed that contain that exact term.
Sewage to Contaminate Soils and Waterways
Sewage is required to be reticulated back to Dunsborough, instead the developer will be disposing it all onsite to save money. This is despite their own environmental report noting that sewage will cause “degradation of retained vegetation within the Development Envelope through the contamination of surface water and groundwater and the alteration of surface hydrology.”
Loss and Clearing of National Park
Rather than ceding 21.38 hectares of land to national park as outlined in the legislation, this new proposal seeks to reduce that amount to 15.82 hectares. Effectively an additional bushland area similar to the MCG + Optus + Subiaco Oval would be cleared to make way for luxury housing and the proposed boutique hotel. The proposal also requires more than 1ha of existing National Park to be cleared, a fact kept from the public unit late 2024 when the developer was forced to admit its desire to clear-fell additional native coastal habitat in order to increase the size of the development.
If all this appears a little murky and under-the-table, rest assured you are far from alone. Both the WA Liberal Party and the Greens are opposed to the development proposal in its current form and Libby Mettam has written to the Crime and Corruption Commission about her concerns with the SDAU process.
The Smiths Beach Action Group is not opposed to sustainable, well-planned, and community-orientated development of Smiths Beach. What we are against is development that needlessly goes outside the agreed and existing framework and guidelines, and which will have serious adverse impacts on a pristine and much-loved beach and its surrounds.
If you feel similarly, please show your support by emailing the relevant WA Government Ministers, signing up to our mailing list or following us and engaging with our content on the social media platforms detailed below. And please tell your friends and family!