COMMUNITY

Sophie Underwood’s fight to protect our natural landscapes

It all seems a bit much sometimes. Sophie Underwood often wishes she could just close her eyes and relax. Perhaps escape for a while to the west of Flinders Island where she is a part-owner in a coastal bush block. But then that niggling sense of dread wrenches her focus back to the task ahead. That sinking feeling that, if she stops to rest, all the places she holds dear – including that little oasis of bushland in Bass Strait – will be put at risk.

For more than 20 years, Underwood, 46, has been fighting to protect the landscapes of her childhood against the creep of development. Many lifelong Tasmanians speak warmly of the idyllic, boundary-free lifestyles of their youth – the beaches, forests and suburban scrub – but with a certain acceptance that such things are in the past. For Underwood, these reveries are not enough. She refuses to concede the way of life she grew up with is a thing of fond memories only. She will not accept that economic imperatives override the rights of her children and their friends to enjoy the wide open land she revelled in as a youngster.

“I’m really grateful I’ve grown up somewhere like Tasmania. I’m not saying it should stay as it is …” Underwood says, her voice trailing off as she strives to explain what it is she is fighting for. “I care about the children’s future. I want them to grow up somewhere beautiful, because I think beauty is uplifting.”

The Mercury letters pages are often home to the opinions of Tasmanians who see Underwood and other “anti-development” types as “selfish” and “stuck in the past”. The current debate over skyscrapers in Hobart has divided the community in the way that only a huge project can. In some ways the proposal for high-rise hotel towers by the Fragrance Group has been a gift to Underwood and others who are seeking to raise awareness about the soon-to-be-implemented Tasmanian Planning Scheme, which is aimed at speeding up building approvals and providing consistency across municipalities.

The State Government hopes the TPS will allow Tasmania to shake off its development-blocking reputation and lure investors who have been put off by the frustrations of dealing with 29 councils and just as many planning schemes, as well as the formidable willpower of island residents, known for their willingness to hit the streets in protest.

Underwood says she is not against a statewide scheme per se. “What I’m against is the content of the scheme and also the inability of the scheme to be able to cater for differences in local character. I’m not against density and subdivisions, but this scheme does not allow councils to decide where that density should go.”

Underwood argues the TPS threatens the state’s brand by diminishing the protection of neighbourhood amenity, character, privacy and sunlight in urban areas and limiting the types of development that allow for community input and appeals, including in national parks and reserves. She hopes the image (or threat, as she sees it) of skyscrapers in Hobart will make more Tasmanians take note.

“What those towers show is the importance of the planning legislation,” Underwood says. “I felt the community wasn’t aware of the changes that are being hoiked on them. It [the TPS] is so complicated. You don’t realise the importance of planning laws until you’re faced with a development that you don’t want to see where you live or where you holiday. I’m worried because under the TPS someone could build an 8.5m building right next to my house in South Hobart or a three or four multi-unit development and there’s nothing I could do about it.”

Currently, the state is still operating under the 29 councils’ interim planning schemes, which were implemented between 2013 and 2015 under the previous Labor government’s attempt at a statewide standardisation process. The implementation of the current Tasmanian Planning Scheme is well under way, with the enabling legislation passed by Parliament and local councils working on Local Planning Provisions (LPPs) that will help them conform to the new rules. The Government allocated $300,000 to help councils get this done by the end of the year, although questions remain over how smaller councils will manage.

With the TPS so close to being a done deal, it is questionable exactly what Underwood and co still hope to achieve. She argues that, with Labor and the Greens yet to reveal their detailed planning policies, there is scope to make planning a major election issue. There is also the chance for community members to make representations to their local councils about the formation of the new LPPs, although there is a limit to the powers that councils will have to override state laws.

“The Planning Scheme as it stands won’t be good for our brand. It will affect the very things that people come here for,” Underwood says. “It should be a vision for Tasmanians, not just developers. We need an inclusive and democratic planning system that allows for community input.”

Underwood was 11 before she started wearing shoes on a daily basis. Before then her schooling had been blissfully unconventional, as epitomised by a photo that once appeared on the front page of the Mercury. It shows Underwood, aged three, walking to school barefoot in a dress handmade by her sister Jean, with her pet duck Tabby by her side. “I was the first thing Tabby saw when he cracked the egg open, and he thought I was his mother,” Underwood says.

Underwood’s father was the late Governor Peter Underwood and her mother was Sally Sorell, who founded the Cottage School in Bellerive more than 40 years ago. Sorell, who died in 2005, set up the alternative school because she, in Underwood’s words, “didn’t agree with the type of education that was being offered”.

“She started it at home and then Mum and Dad bought a cottage down the road. I went there from when I was three,” Underwood says. “We would spend a day of each week in the bush. I didn’t wear shoes until I was 11. I remember talking to Dad about it once, and he said, ‘I could not do anything to make you wear shoes – you flatly refused’.”

From 11, Underwood went to independent girls’ school Fahan, where she struggled to adjust at first, but soon thrived and ended up as head girl. “Adjusting was interesting. I had to wear shoes for starters, and a uniform,” Underwood says. “Sitting at a desk was a new experience for me, but I just embraced it for what it was.”

After completing a science degree with honours, Underwood developed her political and campaign nous working for Greens senator Christine Milne. She met her partner Matt Dell, a geologist and cartographer, when they both joined a conservation fundraising group that bought the aforementioned piece of land on Flinders Island.

Although she rejects the “anti-development” label, Underwood has been a thorn in the side of certain developers. She was unhappy with plans by Federal Group to develop a housing estate on a golf course near Coles Bay at Swanwick, where her family has a shack. She successfully appealed against council approval for the estate in 2009, having lost a number of similar appeals against other subdivisions.

Later, Underwood appealed against Federal’s original plans for the site that now houses the Saffire resort. Although she is content to live with the final design, she feels it is still “unnecessarily imposing on the landscape”.

Recently, she led a campaign by Coles Bay locals, shack owners and RACT members to block an upgrade of the RACT’s Freycinet Lodge, which would have encroached further on the national park. The company heeded the protests, particularly given the outcry among its own members, and came up with a more sensitive design, proving that compromise is possible in the vexed world of Tasmanian planning.

While it was an eventual win, Underwood is visibly exhausted by the process. “It took six months of campaigning for the RACT to withdraw that project,” the mother of two says. “After children, I didn’t think I would go back to campaigning. I was exhausted. But, I thought, ‘I can’t not do anything’.”

There is a real sense of emotional and physical fatigue as Underwood talks about the Tasmanian Planning Scheme. She admits that at first she wanted to simply pretend it was not happening and let others deal with the consequences. She had nursed her mother for years before she died and suffered emotionally after the birth of her daughters, now aged five and seven. It is several years since she received regular pay cheques and the family has been relying on her and Dell’s small cartography business. There was a time recently when bills could not be paid.

“I don’t want to be in that position ever again,” Underwood says, grimacing at the thought that she sounds like a martyr. “There’s a lot of personal ramifications and I do wonder why I am making this sacrifice. It’s a huge impact on our family.”

Despite her weariness, Underwood is heading the newly formed Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania, to campaign for greater community input in planning laws and policies. Underwood describes it as a network of more than 40 groups across Tasmania, from big environmental organisations like the Wilderness Society to residents’ associations in Glebe, Mt Stuart and St Helens. It will be officially launched on July 6 in Hobart.

“We’ve got some seed funding to pay me, but we need help financially to run this campaign, so we are looking for major donors,” Underwood says.

Property Council of Australia Tasmanian executive director Brian Wightman represents the interests of developers, but argues mums and dads will also benefit from the changes. He argues the standardisation of what was previously a ridiculously inconsistent planning regime in Tasmania will “improve housing supply”.

“The Tasmanian Planning Scheme standardises new block sizes across the state for single and multiple dwellings, providing a level of consistency which will be attractive to investors,” Wightman says in response to fears that relaxing rules around heights and set-backs will lead to more boundary-hugging McMansions.

“Subdivisions and in-fill developments deliver density, which provides home-owners with access to many essential services.

“We need to add to the attraction of Tasmania as a place to move, to raise a family, find a job and build an affordable home. If we truly believe in fairness and equity then we must cater for societal change and take advantage of house prices in our state, which still provide people with an opportunity to enter the property market.”

The housing affordability angle may be hard for Underwood and others to counter, but she says the Government has provided no evidence the new planning laws will lead to more budget-friendly, family and community-friendly housing.

“We’re already seeing under the interim planning schemes people losing their privacy and having their real estate values affected by neighbouring properties,” Underwood says. “There needs to be a balance between being able to build your house and having consideration for your neighbour. It’s not good for anyone and will not lead to healthy communities and friendly neighbour relations if you can just take someone’s sunlight and view. I’m not anti-development, but it needs to be equitable. With these new laws it’s tipped way too far in the favour of developers.”

Hobart author Richard Flanagan, Tasmanian-born actress Essie Davis and tourism bigwigs including Simon Currant and Federal’s Greg Farrell are among those decrying the Fragrance Group’s high-rise plans. Underwood hopes the skyscraper outcry will prompt politicians to develop planning policies that set out what can and cannot be built in Tasmania’s cities and regions, to end the uncertainty once and for all. Although she is seeking funding for the Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania, she hopes it will be a short-lived entity and that her career as a campaigner will soon come to an end.

“I don’t want to spend the next 20 years arguing about what should and shouldn’t go ahead,” she says. “It shouldn’t be left up to the community to protect what it is that makes Tasmania special. It’s important that we get the rules right so we don’t have open-slather development.”