Bushfire Fix Trumps Trees at New Bunker Bay Resort
A City’s bid to block chalets planned for a site adjoining Pullman’s Bunker Bay resort in Western Australia’s idyllic south-west has been dismissed by a state panel that ruled bushfire safety must outweigh 13 native trees that will have to go.
The $12 million ‘The Farm, Bunker Bay’ resort is proposed by Farm Break Developments, owned by the Martin family that controls Perth-based Coogee Chemicals–Australia’s largest producer of chlorine-based chemicals.
The new resort, designed by Fremantle-based Kerry Hill Architects for a 26.5ha site off Cape Naturaliste Road, would have a mix of two- and three-bedroom chalets.
In July 2025, a decision on the 10-chalet proposal was deferred after WA’s Regional Development Assessment Panel expressed concerns about bushfire risk.
This week, on January 20, Farm Break came back to the five-member panel with amended plans that proposed vegetation management on a 2.4ha portion of the site, which included a parcel where 13 of the site’s 290 trees would be removed.
In a 694-page report, the City of Busselton recommended the plans be refused because too much vegetation would be lost and views, including from the base of Cape Naturaliste lighthouse, would be compromised.
Appearing for Farm Break, Hatch Roberts Day partner Deon White said that “on balance” the revised proposal “significantly reduces the bushfire risk”.
White said that if Hatch Roberts Day had been invited to a recent site inspection by City staff, concerns over visual amenity and the nature of planned clearing could have been resolved ahead of the January 20 panel meeting.
He said a play area was removed from plans in order to minimise vegetation loss.
Also appearing for Farm Break, environmental consultant Kirsten Knox said any critically endangered western ringtail possums disturbed by the project could be relocated as they had been successfully elsewhere in southern WA.
“The only change to the distant view of the site is the removal of the 13 trees,” she said.
“We think it will not be noticeable.”
She said that much of the vegetation managed in the 2.4ha portion of the site would be understorey, including weeds and paddock grasses from the site’s former use as a farm.
“It’s like they do at the [adjacent] Pullman resort,” she said.
“If you’ve been there, there’s still plantings, there’s still gardens.”
The new resort would be located on rising land above the Pullman resort, which has absolute beach frontage to secluded Bunker Bay and is one of WA’s most exclusive stays.
Asked by panel chair Dale Page if Farm Break’s plans satisfied bushfire regulations and whether a fire fix should trump tree retention, bushfire consultant Gary McMahon, who appeared for the City, conceded he would “go with people first, then the ecology”.
“[Human] life’s too important,” the firefighter of 26 years’ standing said.
“We would be comfortable that [the project] would [now] meet the bushfire requirements.”
Responding to Page, who further asked why Hatch Roberts Day had not been invited to the site inspection, a City official said the revised plans were received close to Christmas and the City’s ecologist was well across the matter of fire protection.
Page said it was “not possible for a project like this to tick all [the fire protection and ecology] boxes”.
“July last, my key concern was bushfire risk,” she said.
“I was less concerned about the issues of clearing and visual amenity.
“This is still my position.”
Page said visual pollution was “less of an issue than it had been made out to be”.
She said the planned chalets were “well designed” and less prominent from the lighthouse than the Pullman resort and existing large houses in the area.
Panel member Clayton Higham said the project made a “small footprint on a very large site”.
“I think it’s been done very sympathetically with the landscape,” he said.
“It has nowhere near the sort of visual impact you see on other parts of this coastline.”
Panel member and Busselton city councillor Anne Ryan said she had considered whether a second deferral might be warranted but the meeting had “soothed” her concerns.
“We have huge bushfire access concerns in this area ... especially in areas with one road in and one road out such as this,” she said.
She said updates to fire regulations in recent years meant the Pullman Resort, as approved two decades ago, “would not have been approved today”.
The City’s recommended refusal, moved by panel member and Busselton Deputy Mayor Kate Cox, lapsed for want of a seconder.
An alternative motion of approval, with revised conditions including that material design and colour serve to minimise visual pollution, was put by Page and carried after all members except Cox supported it.
After the panel meeting, Hayley Swift of Place Development, the overall manager of the project, said the approval would set a valuable precedent for investment in much-needed, high-quality accommodation in Australia’s south-west.
“We look forward to delivering a respectful tourism asset to iconic Bunker Bay for the Martin family who has been committed to an exceptional outcome from the outset,” she said.
