Protesters accused of tall storey

A TASMANIAN conservation group and a hotel developer have accused each other of circulating misleading images about a controversial Hobart hotel development.

Tasmanian Conservation Trust has been circulating an image of Fragrance Group’s 55m, Collins St Hotel proposal, which is presently out for public consultation.

The hotel at 2-6 Collins St will feature 256 rooms, conference facilities including a 1000-seat conference hall, meeting spaces, two restaurants, a retail space, a pool and wellness centre, and three levels of above-ground carparking totalling 167 spaces.

But a Fragrance Group spokesman said the trust’s image was “clearly false and deliberately misleading”.

Tasmanian Conservation Trust director Peter McGlone said the proposed hotel was three times the height of many of the nearby buildings and the image it had created gave the public an idea of what the building would look like against that backdrop.

“The image Fragrance Group has released is incredibly misleading because it was only their building and not in context with any other buildings,” he said.

“What TCT has done is used an image of the existing part of Hobart with the old Woolstore building in the picture and superimposed the proposed the Fragrance building.

“The proposed tower is di- rectly adjacent to the heritage listed Old Woolstore Complex and will overshadow nearby residential buildings.

“It’s another example of a Fragrance Group building that is way out of scale for that part of Hobart.”

It’s the second time the trust has used this tactic after it did the same thing with Fragrance Group’s Elizabeth St proposal, which closed its public advertising period last Friday.

Hobart City Council received more than 1000 submissions against the twin tower project at Elizabeth St.

It comes as urban design consultant Leigh Woolley’s council-commissioned report into building heights is set to be debated at a city planning committee meeting tonight.

Under that report, CBD buildings would be capped at 60m.

The Collins St development would fall in a zone capped at 21m under the proposed plan but the report will not act retrospectively.