Karratha’s ‘Cottesloe in the North’ Mulataga on back-burner, DevelopmentWA focus on Baynton and Madigan lots

As construction costs continue to rise, a suburb described as Karratha’s “Cottesloe in the North” has been put on the back burner with DevelopmentWA focusing on developing currently available lots of land. The long-awaited Mulataga suburb promises a coastal foreshore with a surf club, park and amphitheatre, a primary school and a mixture of houses and apartments, with the 171ha area of land expected to provide 1400 dwellings. Plans were drawn up nine years ago, pending several modifications relating to the coastal hazard setback and coastal foreshore reserve before eventually being approved by the WA Planning Commission in November 2020. Speaking to the Pilbara News, DevelopmentWA chief executive Frank Marra said the next stage of residential lot development will be within Madigan Estate rather than Mulataga. “Mulataga is an important element of Karratha’s growth strategy, residential land supply is not the cause of Karratha’s current housing supply pressures,” he said. “Karratha’s housing availability continues to face challenges from new house construction being negatively impacted by building costs, materials supplies and labour availability.” In a follow up statement, Mr Marra said the State Government, through DevelopmentWA, has put into place a long-term land supply pipeline for Karratha. The setback comes as rising constructions costs in Karratha caused Pacifica Developments to back out of the long-gestating Hilton Garden Inn earlier this year. In Perth, rising building costs and labour shortages have caused projects to collapse with plans for a $165 million apartment tower in South Perth falling through on July 28. Sirona Urban revealed it would abort the tower, called 28 Lyall, with Sirona Urban managing director Matthew McNeilly stating he saw no relief in the short- to mid-term and expected other projects would also fold. Data released on July 29 as part of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ quarterly producer price indexes showed manufacturing input costs climbed 17.7 per cent, the highest annual growth since the March quarter of 1980. House construction rose 3.7 per cent in WA over the three months to June 30, while non-residential construction was up 2.4 per cent. Mr Marra said DevelopmentWA has a strong pipeline of land available in Karratha. “Our current residential focus lies at Baynton West where there are 10 lots for sale, and at the Madigan Estate where there are 44 lots for sale, including 2 mixed use sites yielding up to 9 dwellings each,” he said. “Funding has also been announced in the recent State Budget for further residential supply, Stages 1C and 2A within the Madigan Estate are scheduled for construction in 2022/2023. These stages will yield a further 62 lots.” Mr Marra said a subdivision redesign is underway within the Mulataga Structure Plan area to ensure the future subdivision delivers a sustainable product that responds to market demands. In response to whether there were plans to develop Mulataga current Lands Minister John Carey said the Government had invested $12m to release 62 residential blocks across Karratha in the last Budget. “I’ll always take advice from our agencies, but we do try and seek every opportunity and I want to assure you our Government is looking at all different kinds of land holdings and seeing how we can use that,” he said.