Beaufort Street runs through the heart of Australia's most intact Federation suburb.
The City of Stirling's draft planning policy quietly removes the protections that keep it that way. This is what six storeys behind our State-protected buildings could look like. You have a say — and it only takes a few minutes.
Artist's impression prepared by the Mount Lawley Society to illustrate the scale now possible under the proposed controls.
Continuity on paper. A step backwards in substance.
The Council presents its new planning rules as a tidy administrative update — moving from the old Scheme (LPS3) to a new one (LPS4). In substance, they are not the same. The change removes the Scheme-level instrument that gave heritage protection its legal force, and leans on a Heritage Act mechanism that, by the Department's own guidance, only covers a handful of landmark buildings.
The result is a weakening of protection across the whole Heritage Area — for the thousands of ordinary pre-1960 homes and the Beaufort Street streetscape that give Mount Lawley its character. A guidance policy, on its own, cannot put that back.
3 → 1
Reinforcing legal instruments reduced to a single guidance policy
Repair orders
Only reach State Register landmarks — not ordinary heritage homes
6+ storeys
Now possible where the old plan capped height at 3–5
Pick the concerns that matter to you
Tap any concern to understand it. You'll choose the ones that resonate when you make your submission — and we'll help you say it in your own words.
Then vs now
The old Beaufort Street Local Development Plan set out detailed, enforceable controls. Here is what the new policy leaves out.
You don't have to love old buildings for this to matter
Heritage is about more than architecture. It's about the kind of place Mount Lawley is to live in, walk through, and run a business in.
It holds a community together
A coherent, walkable streetscape is where a neighbourhood actually meets — on the footpath, at the cafe, outside the shops. The consistent scale of Beaufort Street makes it a place people linger rather than pass through, and that everyday contact is what turns a collection of houses into a community.
It protects everyday amenity
Human-scaled development means more sunlight on the street, less overshadowing of homes, manageable traffic and parking, and a public realm built for people. Get the scale wrong and those impacts land on residents who never wanted to live beside a tower.
It is a genuine economic asset
Beaufort Street's character is why its independent businesses and cafes work, and why visitors come. A distinctive heritage high street is rare and valuable; bland medium-rise redevelopment trades that advantage away.
It is a nationally significant place
Mount Lawley is the most intact Federation-era suburb in Australia, and Beaufort Street cuts through its heart. This is not ordinary streetscape — it is a piece of the nation's architectural record that exists nowhere else in such complete form.
You only get to lose it once
Heritage decisions are one-way. Once the consistency of the street is broken and the historic fabric is gone, no future policy can put it back. That is exactly why the protections need to be strong before development pressure arrives, not after.
We're not asking the Council to stop — we're asking them to fix three things
This is a constructive position. The new policy improves some drafting; what it needs is the protection it dropped. These are the asks your submission can carry.
Restore a Scheme-level Special Control Area
Designate a Special Control Area in LPS4 Part 5 (Table 7) for the Mount Lawley and Menora Heritage Area, restoring the Scheme-level instrument that gave the old framework its enforcement weight.
Put demolition-by-neglect rules in the policy itself
Add operational demolition-by-neglect provisions to the Local Planning Policy — local repair-notice mechanisms, a presumption that demolition is refused where deterioration is due to neglect, and periodic condition reporting for Heritage List places — rather than relying on Heritage Act orders that only reach State Register places.
Spell out which R-Codes clauses the policy actually modifies
Identify, clause by clause, which Residential Design Code provisions the policy modifies and under which limb of clause 3.2.3 each operates, so applicants, decision-makers and the Tribunal can see what carries binding force and what is only guidance.
Read it yourself
We encourage you to read the source documents. Everything we say above is drawn from them and from the Department of Planning's own published guidance.
You can also visit the City of Stirling project page for the full set of consultation material.
Ready? It takes about five minutes.
We'll help you build a submission in your own words, keep a copy for you, and walk you through lodging it with the Council. Then ask everyone in your household to do the same — every person's submission is counted.
Start my submission