MONA HOTEL A GOER
COUNCIL SET TO CHANGE RULES
GLENORCHY City Council is to create a specific area plan to facilitate the development of Mona’s $300 million, five-star hotel at Berriedale.
It will allow the world renowned museum to erect temporary art installations and hold some events without having to apply for a permit.
But the project, and others related to the Berriedale peninsula site, will still need to deal with issues raised by a nearby wastewater treatment plant to navigate the council process.
A council planning authority meeting today will consider a request by Mona to amend aspects of the planning scheme — and aspects of the Statewide Planning Provisions.
They include: MAKING “hotel industry” a permitted use. It is prohibited in the Environmental Management Zone and discretionary in the Major Tourism Zone that both cover the area under the Glenorchy Interim Planning Scheme. ADDRESSING new height provisions in the previously mentioned zones to enable sig- nificantly higher buildings to be considered. OVERRIDING the Waterway and Coastal Protection Code and the Inundation Prone Areas Code to enable the $300 million hotel to “cantilever” over the river. ALLOWING for temporary art installations, artworks or structures for occasional events to be constructed without a planning permit.
The 63m-high hotel, called Hotel at Mona or Homo, plans to offer 172-rooms and add 120 more full-time equivalent staff to Mona’s operations.
Combined with a high-roller casino, which will not be sought until the Federal Group monopoly expires in 2023, it is hoped the two developments will future-proof the museum.
Mona’s council application says David Walsh will personally subsidise the museum by about $13 million a year.
Mona co-chief executive Mark Wilsdon said the plan allowed them to submit a development application for Homo.
“We’re going through due process,” Mr Wilsdon said. “This is the first step. The next step is to submit a develop- ment application under the planning scheme and then after that we will undertake community consultation.”
Mona still needs to break an impasse with TasWater that has stalled its previous plans to get the hotel approved.
In October 2015, a councilinitiated expressions of interest process awarded a licence to Mona for the waterfront land, formerly a caravan park.
The museum planned to establish its $6 million Mona Accommodation Berriedale, since renamed Hobo, which would feature 109 units, in- cluding pods, camping facilities and caravans.
But after Mona was asked by council and TasWater to provide a $100,000 report on the emissions from the nearby Cameron Bay sewage treatment plant, which does not comply with odour restrictions, the proposal stalled and Mona’s licence expired.
The 400m “attenuation zone” includes the caravan park and the site of the proposed hotel — prohibiting them from being passed under the Glenorchy Interim Planning Scheme.