How one council plans to handle WA’s population boom – just don’t call it the Gold Coast of the west

With Western Australia’s population projected to reach 3.5 million within 10 years, the pressure is on local governments to open the doors for housing supply to support that growth.

While much of Perth’s metropolitan area is constrained due to established residential areas and restrictions on subdivisions, the City of Rockingham has recently received approval from the WA Planning Commission for its own Precinct Structure Plan that aims to unlock opportunities for diverse housing options.

A report this week from the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre – Every Person Counts: Planning for Western Australia’s Future Population – reveals WA is on track to add half a million people within a decade, and projected to reach four million by 2043.

City of Rockingham Mayor Lorna Buchan said WA’s significant growth rate was mirrored within the council’s borders.

“We are experiencing quite a bit of growth, so 5100 people arriving every year, 14 people a day, and obviously we need to provide them with somewhere to live,” she said.

“So I see the government’s role in that is actually making the planning frameworks that will facilitate housing for that amount of people joining the city.”

The city’s plan focuses on the Rockingham Strategic Centre at the heart of the community, with a targeted approach to population density by utilising and developing established land.

The strategy has identified key precincts within the city centre, with plans to develop multi-storey apartment blocks in a bid to boost housing density and fit in the growing population.

Buchan said the densities contained within the plan addressed the state’s requirement to achieve targets of at least 50 dwellings per gross hectare near train stations and high-frequency public transport.

“There are eight sub-precincts within the plan, which all respond to development height in a manner designed to complement and enhance the existing and desired character of each area,” she said.

In the Southern Residential sub-precinct, the city is encouraging two to three-storey development, while four-storey development is permitted in the Coastal Lot sub-precinct.

The Waterfront Village sub-precinct includes a component along Rockingham Beach Road that permits 12-storey development and limited potential for 16 storeys, if the plan’s criteria are met – or one large 24-storey development on a large vacant site if the criteria are not met.

Just don’t call it the Gold Coast of the west.

Buchan said comparisons to the development of a high-rise similar in scope to the famed Queensland locale were not accurate due to the proposed height limits.

“The plan has been carefully designed to create Rockingham as a destination that responds to its unique geographic attributes and strengths,” she said.

“So it’s definitely not the Gold Coast, but we do want to create as much housing as possible in this area, because of all the transit options and the fact that it’s already serviced by community infrastructure.”

Perhaps a more apt comparison could be made with Perth’s seaside suburb of Scarborough, which features rows of apartments and a busy foreshore district.

City of Rockingham major planning projects manager Tristan Fernandes said using established infrastructure would help minimise costs for ratepayers.

“If you think about the time it takes to bring greenfield sites to market, it is about a 10-year period,” he said.

“There’s no easy land to develop, and it is getting further and further away from infrastructure.

“The cost to taxpayers and ratepayers then starts to become quite a significant concern. So what we’ve been working on with our planning strategy is to make areas with existing infrastructure perform their role. You can build 200 apartments a lot quicker than you can build 20 four-by-two homes.”

Fernandes said another key to the strategy is a proposed route for rapid transit between the Rockingham trains station and the foreshore, with options including buses, trackless trams or even a fixed tram.

“It’s a mode agnostic mid-tier transport network with a view to change how people move,” he said.

“If you live in this area in particular, we are very cognisant of the factors to move in and out of the metro area. The ability for the state government to invest in significant public transport and frequent public transport is challenging.

“However, if we get the density and the location of different high-frequency routes right and make sure that we reserve the alignment and perpetuity, and then everything can build around it, that route can evolve over time.”

The city’s plan supports more homes, jobs and services for up to 30,000 residents, and strengthens opportunities across key areas including defence, healthcare, tourism, industry and transport‑led activation.

BCEC director, Professor Alan Duncan, said the centre’s population report also identified housing supply as a binding constraint on sustainable growth – especially as WA’s project pipeline expanded to include AUKUS, Westport and other large-scale developments.

Rockingham sits right on the doorstep of these massive projects, but Buchan said the strategic plan for the city was developed before the AUKUS deal was even announced.

“AUKUS will help, because AUKUS is going to be the catalyst for this, and we’ve certainly got a spotlight on Rockingham now because of AUKUS,” she said.

“We’re getting a lot of interest from developers wanting to come in, asking for the plan, asking to speak to Tristan.

“So we’re fingers crossed that this is really going to be a jumping off point for Rockingham to regenerate the foreshore and the city centre area provides some additional diversity of housing.”

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