Tourism leaders oppose hotels

Architects involved in the design of Hobart must never forget to:

TASMANIA’S peak tourism industry body will come out in strong opposition to skyscrapers on the Hobart waterfront.

The Mercury can reveal the Tourism Industry Council Tasmania will put in a submission to the Hobart City Council opposing the height of two proposed Fragrance hotels near the Hobart waterfront.

The TICT says the Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme, and its low-rise height limits, must be maintained.

The Singaporean Fragrance Group has submitted development applications for a 179metre hotel in Davey St and a 84-metre hotel in Collins St.

Both have been the subject of fierce debate since being announced in October, especially with the height of the Davey St hotel rising from 120m and the Collins St hotel from 75m.

The development applications have been lodged with the council but are yet to be publicly advertised. The council has asked for more information about the projects.

TICT chief executive Luke Martin said the board made a decision to make a representation on the two hotels, saying the integrity of the Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme had to be maintained. “Sullivans Cove is sacrosanct and must be protected — which is what the planning scheme seeks to do,” Mr Martin said. Under the Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme, building heights must not exceed 15m for the Collins St site and 18m for the Davey St site.

A report endorsed by the Hobart City Council last month by urban design consultant Leigh Woolley suggests future building projects in Hobart’s CBD should be 75m high at the most and that aldermen consider the city’s character when deliberating on applications for buildings exceeding 45m.

Mr Martin said the TICT believed the CBD was where such high-rise hotels and buildings should be located.

“We recognise demand for increasing height for hotels and other uses,” he said.

“And support in principle Hobart City Council increasing the height limits in the CBD.”

Architect of the project Xsquared Architects director Peter Scott, who this week unveiled new images of the proposed development, said the Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme could allow for such transformative projects as the two hotels.

“When they drew it up [the Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme] they talked about the need for activation at the back of the Cove, and what better way to do that than with a 400-room hotel,” he said. “Whether you like it or not, there’s a lot of good things a development can do here.”

Last month the council revealed the submitted development application for the Davey St hotel had contained an extra 59m of height than originally disclosed, topped off with a 25m spire.

A group, Hobart Not Highrise, has been formed to campaign against the heights of the hotels.

Premier Will Hodgman also has said he personally has “serious reservations” about the proposal.

Hobart Acting Lord Mayor Ron Christie said he expected the proposals to get many responses from the Hobart community when they were advertised in the near future.

“The community has taken an enormous interest in their city, which is great,” Alderman Christie said.

“It’s just great to see the reaction from the citizens of our city and just how much they care about the future of our city and keep it coming.”

On Tuesday a public forum was held looking at changes to Hobart’s planning scheme, with another to be held at the council’s Elizabeth St conference room next Tuesday.

The TICT submission follows a wave of criticism from leading tourism figures.

Tourism leader Simon Currant told the Mercury in May he would leave the state or stand in front of bulldozers if the high-rises were built.

“I support new hotels in Hobart 100 per cent, but I do not support these,” Mr Currant said.

“I don’t want Hobart to end up like the Gold Coast with high-rises — if that happens I’ll leave, I’ll go somewhere else.

“I will sit in front of the bulldozers in the front line because it is so important to us.”

Federal Group boss Greg Farrell said in May the appeal of Hobart as a destination would be

jeopardised if generic buildings were allowed to dominate the skyline.

“I strongly believe hotels in Hobart should aim to add to the strength of the Tasmanian brand, not just draw from it,” Mr Farrell said. “Destinations like Brisbane have lost their identity by allowing generic high-rise buildings to dominate a once interesting and unique cityscape.

“That’s not to say Hobart shouldn’t ever have high-rise buildings, but we need to protect the heritage waterfront precinct and identify specific zones for development.”

Tasmanian actor Essie Davis and author Richard Flanagan are among those to air concerns, while the Property Council of Australia has called for a more objective and dispassionate approach.

Eco-tourism entrepreneur Robert Pennicott has called for compromise from the proponent.

“We have to be very careful if we are going to change the skyline or the Hobart waterfront.”

IWILL never forget visiting Hobart for the first time. I was a primary student on a school excursion from Somerset, a tiny town of a few thousand people, near Wynyard on the North-West Coast.

Life at Somerset as a boy was bliss.

I remember fishing with Dad on the sand at the mouth of the Cam River, catching cocky salmon, while listening to the Test cricket on a crackly old radio.

I recall scraping oysters off the rocks further upriver, and swimming and surfing at the beach.

A friend and I once caught blue tongues among the wild fennel and blackberries along the railway tracks.

We put the docile lizards on our shoulders and walked up the main street of town to the amusement of shoppers.

I recall diving for beach flags at the surf club and snorkelling around the rocks, trying to spear parroties with a Hawaiian sling, and kicking the footy on Langley Park.

I remember dodging broken beer bottles strewn through the boobyalla and banksias behind the sandy shoreline and seeing my sister’s horse bolt frantically, riderless and free, down the beach.

Somerset Primary School was a quaint little weatherboard building painted the traditional mustardy yellow with dun-red trim and roof.

Not many more than 100 students were enrolled there.

Mrs Bottle and Mrs Jones kept the students happy and orderly.

One day, all the Grade 5s piled into a bus and travelled to Hobart for an excursion.

We did not arrive in the Tasmanian capital until just before dusk and the bus pulled over on the side of the road somewhere on the Eastern Shore and let us all out to stretch our legs and to look across the River Derwent to the city lights.

I still feel the excitement of that moment. A naïve 11-yearold, I instantly loved Hobart. It astonished me. I had never seen anywhere as beautiful. It seemed so exciting and big.

It was winter and the mountain was covered in snow. I’d never seen snow before. The city at the mountain’s feet looked huge compared with the shops in Somerset’s main street. The still Derwent waters looked deep and, being enclosed by land, had a very different feel to the Bass Strait off the North-West that seemed to go forever into a cold, empty nowhere.

Hobart was composed and defined.

All these years later, I still have moments when the beauty of this city touches me deeply. Hobart has a natural proportion about it. The mountain is so much more than just a hill, but still small enough to be the perfect backdrop to a homely, safe harbour.

I marvel at the view from the masts at the docks up over the suburban foothills to the Organ Pipes. Looking back over the city while departing on the Mona ferry gives a sublime view and brings into frame the Tasman Bridge, which is hardly pretty, but shapely and perfectly proportioned with the mountain, the city and its harbour.

There is a bowl shape carved out of the natural fallaway of the mountain to the Derwent.

Whatever we do when developing the city, the architects involved should be familiar with this beauty because there is a natural shape and proportion that lends itself to exquisite design.

Considering the global challenges we face today, we almost have a moral obligation to our fellow humans to build into our city a higher density population.

What we need is clever design. Local, caring, green, clean design. Design that is a flagship for the state, for the economy, for our community.

We need design that repre- sents our aspirations as much as who we are as Tasmanians today.

It must incorporate transport and community and lifestyle and homes and workspaces.

There are many incredible Tasmanian designers, architects, scientists, artists and thinkers. We need to incorporate their homegrown ideas and, where we can, use design that is not only sympathetic to the landscape but born from it.

How can we get another 10,000, or more, people living in the city without destroying it? How can we do this while improving the environmental quality of the harbour, the river and the rivulets?

If we can do these things, we will minimise the urban sprawl that is destined to arrive on our shores if the rest of the world is our template.

If we do not drive this ourselves — residents, local businesses and all three tiers of government — we will repeatedly have to fend off alien designs that have no relation to our way of life and our home.

If we do not speak up, get involved and lead the way, eventually one of these transplanted eyesores will take root and its kind will spread like the boneseed that we can all see rapidly invading our coastal bush and changing the very nature of our homescape.

Considering the global challenges we face today, we almost have a moral obligation to our fellow humans to build into our city a higher density population.