Gurner, Partners’ Perth Tower Knockback Goes to Mediation

Gurner, Costa Property and Grange Developments are due to undertake a mediation hearing this week over the trio’s mixed-use project at Nedlands in Perth.

The developers are due to attend the mediation with the Metro-Inner North Joint Development Assessment Panel after filing an appeal with the Western Australian State Administrative Tribunal.

The appeal was lodged after revised plans for their Chellingworth project at 97 and 105 Stirling Highway, filed in July this year, were rejected by the panel in August. 

This will be the second time an appeal has been made with the tribunal since plans were first filed in 2020.

Those plans included four towers with 301 apartments and retail space. They were rejected by the panel in July 2020.

Costa Property and Grange Developments’ joint venture Nedlands Rental Property then filed an appeal with the State Administrative Tribunal.

The appeal was upheld by the tribunal, who ruled that the panel had to review the proposed plans. 

A revised version of the plans was filed in November 2020 comprising 231 apartments, three towers instead of four, and reduced heights for two towers—the east tower down from 26 to 24 storeys and the west from 24 to 22.

▲ An render of the three towers proposed in for the Nedlands site.

The City of Nedlands Council remained opposed to the project throughout, recommending that it be refused.

However, the panel approved the revised plans in February 2021, voting 3 to 2. 

After that decision, the City of Nedlands mayor Cilla de Lacy, chief executive Mark Goodlet and planning director Peter Mickleson resigned. 

Tim Gurner then joined the project, with Gurner bringing $500 million to the table, and the name of the venture changing to Nedlands Development in March 2022.

Gurner, Grange and Costa filed amended plans for the site in July 2022.

These amendments included an increase in apartments from 231 to 368, the central tower’s storeys increased to 21 from 17, a total of 516 carparking spaces, and a bridge connecting all three towers. The plans also included a waterfall from the bridge.

These plans were rejected in August, which prompted the second appeal to the tribunal.

The panel said that the amendments involved changes so different to the original $320-million plans that they could not be considered to be an amendment.

Among other projects, the high-profile Gurner is working on a $1.7-billion project in Melbourne's Docklands.