Planning row leaves war veteran unable to sell High Wycombe home

A 93-year-old war veteran is unable to sell his home after government plans have rendered it “worthless”.

Ron Rowton has lived on his one hectare High Wycombe property for 33 years. Five years ago a stroke left him with vascular dementia, and the property is now too big to maintain.

“He likes living here but it’s time he went to a smaller place,” his son, Ron Rowton jnr, said.

Without selling his home, Ron cannot afford to move.

His house was classified for public purpose in the Forrestfield North: Residential Precinct Local Structure Plan.

“He gets told that, sorry, in the plan your property’s going to be a drainage basin and a public open space but we can’t tell you when we’re going to buy it, and no one else will buy it because it’s worthless,” Mr Rowton jnr said.

Due to the fact his land is earmarked for public facilities, Ron can only sell his home to the City of Kalamunda. But there’s no timeframe for when that could be.

“He’s never going to be able to stay here until this process unfolds it could be three five eight ten years, we don’t know, so he’s not going to survive that,” his son said.

“When you have a governmental planning process like this, that prevents a person who is 93 from selling his only asset to properly look after himself in the last years of his life, it is abuse.”

Up to 40 of Ron’s neighbours have been dealt with similar classifications, but it doesn’t stop there. The rules affect countless other WA homes.

Planning and Land Compensation specialist, lawyer Linda Rowley says the way structure plans are designed, this could happen in every metropolitan suburb.

“I don’t think most people realise that a vast majority of land, particularly in the metropolitan region, is affected,” she said.

In the past the Metropolitan Region Scheme allowed for compensation if private land was reserved for a public use.

Now structure plans can sit underneath the scheme, which have no compensation allowances for home owners like Ron.

“It leaves the owner in a position where they can neither claim compensation and nor can they sell their land, it’s an absolutely inequitable scheme,” Ms Rowley said.

To add to the complexity, a 2016 High Court decision changed the compensation rules around the original Metropolitan Region Scheme.

“People whose land was reserved who had rights to compensation could no longer claim, unless they were the original owners who actually owned the land the date the reservation was imposed,” Ms Rowley said.

That could go as far back as the 1950s, and since then many homes have been sold. That means countless West Australians own their land, but have limited rights over it.

Ms Rowley believes the State Government needs to act to make the laws fairer.

“Put together, these two similar but parallel processes which are occurring needs the State Government to rethink how these matters are dealt with,” Ms Rowley said.

The City of Kalamunda says it cannot buy Ron out until the WA Planning Commission finalises the plan.

It’s anticipated WAPC will consider the draft at its April meeting, but that needs to be followed by a developer contribution plan.

In the normal course of events, that DCP must be finalised before land acquisition can go ahead.

But Planning Minister Rita Saffioti claims it’s a problem the City of Kalamunda could have “easily” solved.

While she’s written to the City on Ron’s behalf, she says she’s found no clear or legal solutions within her powers to help, and is now discussing the matter with other ministers to try and find a resolution.

Mr Rowton’s son believes the State Government can do more.

“I’m disappointed with the state government saying there’s no mechanism to help him. They can change this planning process,” he said.

While local and State governments point the finger at each other, Ron is stuck in the middle.

“Our prime aim is to help my father in the last years of his life,” his son said.

“But if out of that comes some determination by someone in government to have a look at these processes and bring some human element to them, well that’ll be good.”