Tourism Planning Taskforce Report - Western Australian Planning ...

Chapter 5Term of Reference 25 Term of Reference 2Assess the implications of allowing a mix ofpermanent and tourist accommodation onland zoned for tourism purposes in terms of:• reducing the growth of touristaccommodation in relation to futuredemand;• potential loss of high-value tourism land(in close proximity to and withaccessibility to areas of highenvironmental, cultural and scenic valueor other locations of strong tourisminterest);• potential land use conflicts betweenshort-stay and permanent occupantscompared with any benefits that a moremixed community may bring; and• other planning issues in relation toallowing a mix, such as distance fromresidential services and the provision ofinfrastructure.5.1 BackgroundIn establishing the taskforce, the Minister wasconcerned as to the potential impacts ofmixing tourism and permanent residential usesin a single development in respect to land useconflict, impact on the tourism experience, theresidential amenity provided in suchdevelopments, and the loss of suitable andavailable land for future tourism development.This provided a clear framework for theidentification and assessment of the variouseffects. The absence of quantitative datamade consideration of components of thisterm of reference difficult, and dictated areliance on anecdotal evidence in somecases. The taskforce considered each areasof potential impact and based its conclusionson the cumulative outcome of theseassessments.5.2 Reducing the growth oftourist accommodationin relation to futuredemandThe implications of the loss of tourist zonedland to permanent residential use on theability to accommodate future tourism demandrelates to the ability for any land alienatedfrom tourism development to be replaced withland of equal tourism value and readiness fordevelopment. This is dependent on thetourism value of the alienated land, inconsideration of its location andcharacteristics, and issues such as availabilityof services. A high impact will be experiencedwhere the loss involves a prime tourism site ina location with limited alternatives. The valueof the loss of a tourism site also will be higherin locations where community opposition todevelopment of existing natural areas is high,and as such, options for replacement of a sitelimited.Where there are a significant number oftourism sites of equal value in a generallocality, or where other equal-value sites withpotential for development or rezoning fortourism purposes are available, then the lossis likely to be less significant.Two categories of proposals provide for theintroduction of permanent residentialcomponents to a tourism site:Category 1: covers zoning and developmentcharacter of a site retained as tourism but userestriction removed on whole or a portion ofthe site or specific number of units,Category 2: covers portion or whole of a sitezoned for residential use.In consideration of proposals under Category1, the following issues were identified inrespect to the ability to accommodate futuretourism growth:• This may result in a specific site reductionin the provision of tourist accommodationwhere the overall scale of the developmentremains unchanged due to allocation of aportion of the development to residentialuse. This potential loss may; however beaddressed where the site capacity existsfor the scale of the tourism development toTourism Planning Taskforce Report33