Hancock's Perth HQ helipad fight hits tribunal, capped at 12 a year

Hancock Prospecting took its bid for a rooftop helipad at its West Perth head office to the State Administrative Tribunal on Monday, 26 October, after the City of Perth refused the application in December. The helipad would sit on the mining group’s five storey Ord Street building, in an office and residential precinct the council has flagged for future housing growth. WAtoday reported the tribunal case, and the detail below follows its coverage.

The council knocked back the plan despite two councillors backing it and the lord mayor speaking favourably of Rinehart. Opposition centred on noise, whether a helipad fitted the area’s existing planning scheme, and the precedent of approving the CBD’s first private use helipad.

Why it matters

For a developer running a contested DA, this case is a live test of how far a council refusal on amenity grounds can be pushed at tribunal, and what evidence actually moves it. Counsel for the applicant, Ord Street Holdings, Grant Donaldson KC, told the tribunal the helipad would run only in daylight hours between noon and 7pm, for up to 12 flights a year, for what the company describes as occasional corporate transport. Donaldson said the proposed use “equates to the sound of an electric kettle boiling for six minutes, once every fortnight, between the hours of noon and 7pm”. City of Perth barrister Tim Houweling countered that noise remains the core issue in the case.

Objectors include neighbouring building owners and the Child and Adolescent Health Service, which told the council that sudden helicopter noise could disrupt testing of children with autism, sensory conditions, ADHD or anxiety, and that downwash from the aircraft could disturb asbestos dust on its ageing roof.

A Hancock Prospecting spokesperson said the original application had been developed with expert technical input confirming it could operate safely, and that the company had since revised its proposal in an effort to resolve the council’s concerns.

The dispute also lands while WA pushes a wider planning rules overhaul, including a proposed rewrite of parking and density baselines across the state (WA proposes scrapping apartment parking minimums, bigger granny flats). A developer reading both cases gets the same signal: council planning schemes written for one era of use are increasingly being tested, whether through tribunal appeal or through the state rewriting the rules itself. Where a scheme is silent or ambiguous on a novel use such as a private helipad, the fight shifts from the planning counter to expert evidence on impact, which is exactly the ground Hancock Prospecting has chosen to contest.

The numbers

The revised plan swaps the helicopter’s approach: instead of the earlier route from the east or west, which would have taken the eight-seat Bell 429 over Subiaco or the mixed residential and office blocks of West Perth, the aircraft would now approach from the south-west, tracking Thomas Street along the fringe of Kings Park before turning to descend onto the five storey Ord Street building. The council’s refusal, handed down in December, came despite two councillors supporting the application at the time.

What’s next

The tribunal hearing opened this week with opening statements from both sides and has not reached a decision. The City of Perth’s case rests on noise impact and precedent for the CBD’s first private use helipad; Hancock Prospecting’s case rests on the revised flight path and the limited annual use it has put on the record. No ruling has been handed down and the outcome remains before the tribunal.