IBP Paving in Nollamara
Nollamara is about 8 km south of our base in Landsdale in a straight line, and it is a City of Stirling suburb where older homes are steadily giving way to new ones. We pave shared driveways and private courtyards on new townhouse sites, replace worn driveways and paths at the older homes that remain, and design and install the soakwells both kinds of property need. All of it is backed by over 20 years in the trade and a lifetime workmanship warranty.
From Mirrabooka Project homes to townhouses
Nollamara was one of three suburbs planned as part of the 1950s Mirrabooka Project, a satellite city for Perth's north. Many of those original homes are now being demolished and replaced with townhouses, so a single street can hold an original Mirrabooka Project era home with its first driveway next to a brand new group of three dwellings.
The two ends of that range want different things. An older home usually needs paving replacement: the original driveway and paths come out and are relaid on a proper compacted base. A townhouse site needs everything at once, planned before the first paver goes down:
- A shared driveway in heavy duty pavers on a crushed limestone base, wide enough for cars to pass.
- A courtyard for each dwelling, with falls away from the house and somewhere for the water to go.
- Bin pads, letterbox and visitor parking areas, plus grated drains where paving meets a garage door or a wall.
On builder or developer projects we work to the engineer's drainage design, and our strata and commercial paving page covers that side of the work.
Drainage on a subdivided Nollamara lot
Packing three dwellings onto one block puts a lot of roof and paving onto a small area, and the City of Stirling's rules leave no room for runoff to leave the site.
All rain falling on the lot must be held on site by soakwells or another City approved system, sized for at least a 1 in 1 year, 60 minute storm: impervious area in square metres times 0.015 gives the cubic metres of storage. Roof water and runoff from paved areas are infiltrated separately, and soakwells under driveways, carports or garages must be trafficable on an approved base. The City also encourages permeable paving.
Source: City of Stirling, On Site Stormwater Drainage Criteria (June 2024).
As an example, a site with 400 square metres of roofs and paving needs 6 cubic metres of storage, split between roof units and paving units. On tight sites a permeable paver on part of the driveway can reduce how much has to go into soakwells. Our City of Stirling soakwell requirements page goes further.
Higher ground and mixed sand
Parts of Nollamara sit on higher ground with views over neighbouring suburbs. The soil there is typically sand at the meeting point of the Spearwood and Bassendean dunes, yellow on one side and grey on the other, and either way it drains well. The water table is generally several metres down, there is no named wetland, and the coast is roughly 8 km off, so neither groundwater nor salt changes the specification. What the high lots do have is fall. We set levels so a driveway runs away from the garage and drains to a pit before the boundary rather than across the footpath.
Kangaroo paw, Des Penman Reserve and the verge
The suburb's name is the Noongar word for the black kangaroo paw, and its main park is the renovated Des Penman Reserve. Out on the street, the City of Stirling's verge rules apply. Paving a verge needs prior approval, and no more than one third of the verge, excluding the crossover and footpath, may be hardstand. Paving has to stay 2 m from a street tree, and a verge with hardstand must include at least one street tree. On a townhouse frontage, where one crossover per street frontage is the general rule, we design the driveway and verge together so the plan is approved in one go.
Source: City of Stirling, Verge Treatment Policy and Verge treatment guidelines; Crossover Policy.
Nearby suburbs
Nollamara borders Westminster and Mirrabooka, with Dianella, Yokine, Tuart Hill and Balcatta close by. See areas we service for every suburb we cover.
