Karratha councillor moves to strip $43.2m Mulataga housing

City of Karratha councillor Brenton Johannsen has tabled a notice of motion, titled “Save Mulataga,” calling for council to strip planned social housing out of the state-funded Mulataga residential estate, The Urban Developer reported on 25 September 2026. The City of Karratha has not set or confirmed a date for a council vote on the motion.

Mulataga is planned as a 1,270-lot residential estate in Karratha, in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The state government’s 2025-26 budget committed $43.2 million toward 169 lots at Mulataga, funding that is partly provided by the Commonwealth government, according to a WA government media statement. Johannsen’s motion does not target the estate itself, but the social housing allocation sitting inside the state-funded component.

Why it matters

The motion pits a sitting councillor against a housing project the state government has already funded and is actively delivering. Karratha and the broader Pilbara have run a tight rental and social-housing market for several years, driven by resource-sector workforce demand, and state ministers have pointed to Mulataga as part of the response. A successful motion to remove social housing from the estate would not change the City of Karratha’s planning approvals on its own. Local councils in WA can lodge advocacy positions and make representations to the state, but the Mulataga funding and delivery sit with the state government, through the Department of Housing and Works, not with the City of Karratha. The practical effect of the motion, if carried, would be pressure on the state to redesign a project it has already budgeted and partly built, not a binding change to the estate.

Johannsen said in the motion that Mulataga “has the potential to become a highly desirable new coastal residential community for Karratha,” arguing the social housing component undercuts that goal. Other states have tried comparable state-backed housing levers: NSW’s Pre-sale Finance Guarantee has backed two projects carrying 35 affordable homes between them, a similar mechanism operating in a different market.

The numbers

The state’s 2025-26 budget allocated $43.2 million to deliver 169 lots at Mulataga, with Commonwealth funding contributing part of that figure, per the WA government’s media statement from the Cook government. Mulataga’s total approved footprint runs to 1,270 lots, meaning the disputed social-housing funding covers a minority of the estate’s eventual lot count. Neither The Urban Developer’s report nor the state government’s statement specifies how many of the 169 state-funded lots are earmarked as social housing specifically, as distinct from affordable or market lots within that allocation.

What’s next

No vote has been recorded. The City of Karratha has not published a date for councillors to consider “Save Mulataga,” and the motion remains a notice on the council’s business paper rather than a council decision. Until a vote is held, the 169 state-funded lots and the $43.2 million budget commitment behind them stand as the state government last described them. Any change to the social housing mix at Mulataga would need to come from the Department of Housing and Works, which controls delivery of the state-funded component, rather than from a City of Karratha resolution alone. Operators tracking Pilbara housing supply should watch for a confirmed council meeting date and for any state government response to the motion before treating the social housing allocation at Mulataga as at risk.