Industry backs WA Land Agency Mergers 

The Property Council welcomes the WA Government’s announcement to merge its two largest land development agencies into a single land agency, which will have an arm that is a specialist authority for industrial land development.

“Merging LandCorp and the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority makes sense because there are duplication of activities”, said WA Executive Director Lino Iacomella.

“It creates a more streamlined process of delivering major state projects.  The current process can be confusing because LandCorp’ s projects followed the traditional local government approvals process, whereas the MRA followed an internal approvals process.

“To be effective for projects like Metronet, the new agency must alsoretain planning approvals powers.

“However it is crucial that the Government also puts strict limits on the new bigger land agency so that private industry is still able to operate effectively.

“This is an opportunity for the Government to re-set the boundaries for the operations a government land agency in the broader market.

“Over many decades the Government’s land agencies have taken on work that could ordinarily be done by the private sector.

“The new land agency needs to focus on delivering state strategic projects and projects that need significant de-constraining to be viable in the regular market.

“It is also very pleasing that a specialist authority will lead the Government’s industrial lands development.

“For too long the Government’s industrial land strategy has been ineffective because of a lack of focus.  It is crucial that the new Industrial Lands Authority is backed up with adequate infrastructure funding to ensure WA’s industrial lands needs are property met,” Mr Iacomella said.