Plans for an inner-city warehouse have been approved despite there being a shortfall in the number of parking bays.
The $5 million project — put forward by Lateral Planning — will transform 8 Robinson Road, Belmont into a two-storey building with office and storage facilities.
The original recommendation to refuse the application because of an inadequate number of parking bays was rejected by the Metro Inner Development Assessment Panel 2-3 at a meeting earlier this month.
The development was then approved 3-2, with Belmont councillors George Sekulla and Phil Marks voting against it.
The site will have 73 car parking bays — up from 53 bays in the original proposal — including 26 in the basement and 31 at ground level.
But according to Local Planning Scheme 15, warehouse and office facilities of this size (4295.6sqm) have a combined requirement of 86 car parking bays, meaning there is still a “shortfall” of 13 bays.
Lateral Planning managing director Alan Stewart said it was a “difficult site” and acknowledged parking was an issue.
“The panel members noted that the proposed use is consistent with the planning framework, although there is a shortfall in the number of parking bays,” the DAP minutes reads.
“The majority of the panel members accepted that the parking requirement for warehouse use is excessive when applied to self storage units.”
Speaking on the original proposal, Cr Marks said 53 was “nowhere near” an adequate number of parking bays.