Listen to the experts on height limits
Hobart’s planning is like an out-of-control circus ghost train, says Marti Zucco
HOBART’S city planning processes are rapidly taking on the appearance of a circus ghost train, driven by an unqualified clique that responds to those who shout the loudest, with the intent to scare people at every bend.
It’s a well-known fact that Hobart has a vast shortage of both affordable and general housing, rental accommodation and the city is feeling the impact of the Airbnb sharing economy. People are struggling to find rental accommodation and are living in tents while some elected Councillors and Aldermen seem prepared to play circus games, putting our city’s future at risk, rather than making decisions based on good, qualified expert advice.
I have constantly stated that a bunch of elected Aldermen and Councillors do not have the expertise to make proper, evaluated planning decisions and that planning must be taken away from elected representatives that clearly make decision based on their politics or ideology.
Worryingly, more and more, these decisions are being made based on pressure from often unrepresentative lobby groups.
That is the reason I have called for the Minister for Planning to intervene and take away planning responsibility from the Hobart City Council.
By way of background, the Hobart City Council has undertaken an extensive process and commissioned one of Tasmania’s leading Architects, Leigh Woolley, to review and make recommendations on building heights in the city. His report was comprehensive in recommending what the city should look like and I fully support his proposed building heights of up to 75m in certain areas.
A qualified officer report was then presented to the Council’s Planning Committee recommending heights at 60m, which was seen as a compromise between the Wooley report and those seeking harsher restrictions.
What then transpired was nothing short of outrageous and demonstrates that there are a number of elected council members who do not take planning seriously, but rather bend to the pressure of lobbyists. The Planning Committee, without qualified officer advice, which is a breach of the Local Government Act, and with a simple wave of a wand, decided that they would change the 60m height recommendation to 45m.
This is not what planning is about. Planning is not about a bunch of Aldermen or Councillors making decisions on the city’s future based on idealism or succumbing to any group that shouts the loudest, That is not how the future of Hobart should be determined.
Even the current planning scheme has not delivered a building above 68.5m, which is the Royal Hobart Hospital. The next highest is the Hyatt Centric hotel now under construction in the bus mall at 63m. Neither of these buildings can nor could be considered “skyscrapers” and nor could it be envisaged under the current planning scheme that we would see buildings much higher as the “performance criteria“and “acceptable solutions” establish a vast number of requirements that restrict heights.
Proper planning is not about scaremongering. This can be demonstrated by the recent refusal of a development in Collins St where under acceptable solutions one could build at a height of about 30m. However, the developer put forward a proposal for a building 57m tall and, rightly so, the council’s qualified professional expert planners recommended refusal for the development. So, the safeguards on height are already in place.