Baltinas Wins Nod for Perth Beachfront Apartment Project

The Western Australian Planning Commission has granted planning permission for an apartment project at Cottesloe’s Marine Parade in Perth.

Marine Parade has been the focus of several developers attempting to build apartment projects despite regular opposition from council and the community.

Baltinas, a Perth-based architecture and development firm, first tried to get planning permission through the Cottesloe council.

The council refused to recommend the plans for the seven-storey apartment project at 122 Marine Parade, which will also have a ground-floor bar and restaurant, in October 2022.

Barry Baltinas, Baltinas’s founder, opted to keep working with the commission on achieving planning approval.

Baltinas has claimed that nearly four in five of the 250 submissions sent in during the public consultation period were in favour of the project.

The project’s sixth storey hits the council’s 21m height limit but the company says the seventh-storey setback means the key-view corridors will not be affected, which was a concern council raised.

In November 2021, Baltinas also bought the site next door at 120 Marine Parade, which had state government planning approval, for $13 million.

Baltinas applied for a 24-month extension of time and minor changes to the plans for 120 Marine Parade in November 2022.

Changes made to the now $26.3-million 120 Marine Parade plans involved altering vehicle-entry locations while keeping the original design for apartments and a ground-floor cafe. 

▲ Andrew Forrest’s controversial Indiana Teahouse redevelopment plans. Source: Indiana Project

Both applications went through the State Development Assessment Unit or the SDAU, a process created during the pandemic to speed up approval processes for big projects.

Four projects worth a combined $447 million were being assessed through the SDAU process at the start of 2022, three of which were on Marine Parade.

One of those is the controversial Indiana Teahouse redevelopment project by Andrew Forrest.