ON THE LIMIT

City moves closer to maximum building heights

HOBART is a step closer to having maximum building heights.

As the high-rise debate continues to rage, the Hobart City Council’s City Planning Committee last night resolved to pursue a set limit. But the precise height of this limit is yet to be determined.

Elected members agreed to change tack — away from a set limit of 45m for the Hobart Interim Planning Scheme and 18m for the Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme — after council officers recommended against such a move, saying it would be too difficult to justify.

Instead, the council will next week vote whether to consider the planning scheme amendments required for a “non-discretionary” height limit in the city.

This would mean a final height limit could be decided after modelling is done by council planning officers.

It will also incorporate the work done by urban design consultant Leigh Woolley.

The move comes after anti-skyscraper group Hobart Not Highrise said it would try to convince the committee members to go against the officers’ original advice. In a deputation to the meeting, group president Brian Corr, right, said aldermen needed to represent the views of ratepayers.

“Hobart must not become a city of skyscrapers, let one in and the rest will come,” Mr Corr said.

“This council could go down in history as the one that saves Hobart [if it issues an absolute height limit].”

Mr Corr proposed that the 45m and 18m once recommended for the two areas be scrapped from the motion, and the council look at a nondiscretionary height limit for the city.

This would mean that once officers determined a limit, no development could surpass that. Hobart director of city planning Neil Noye said this was in line with what planning officers were already doing.

“This clarifies that this is a non-discretionary height limit,” he said.

But Ald Bill Harvey said this meant that if council modelling came back with a recommendation that the limit was over 45m, then the move by Hobart Not Highrise could have “unintended consequences” by allowing higher building than the city demanded.

Ald Helen Burnet said an absolute height limit would send a clearer message for developers and architects about the planning scheme.

Committee chairman Alderman Jeff Briscoe said it was an important step to take as Hobart had “development pressure we did not have before”.

Ald Tanya Denison — the only alderman to vote against the amended motion — said with about 14 buildings in the CBD over 45m, it was too late for Hobart to be picky on building heights.

“The horse has bolted, the ship has sailed, the cow is out of the barn,” she said.