ROSNY HILL
Tears for our patch of nature
ROSNY Hill Nature Reserve has deep personal, and spiritual significance for me and my family, past and present. It is our sacred site; the place where my children, my grandchildren and I placed my deceased parents’ ashes, the place we visit in their memory.
Mum and Dad were not religious, but they were highly principled people with a strong connection to the beauty and restorative power of nature. They loved Rosny Hill in particular, admiring it daily from their Rosny home, which they built and moved into in 1960. As locals, they regularly walked in the public Rosny Hill Nature Reserve, enjoying the birds, the peace and serenity it offered. This is why they asked for their ashes to be placed there, believing in good faith that it would be a public nature reserve in perpetuity.
Last year I moved back into my childhood home. In my retirement I have the good fortune to sit each morning on the front deck that Dad built and gaze at the hill, honouring the memory of Mum and Dad, and reminiscing about all the imaginative fun we neighbourhood kids had bush-bashing up to the top of the hill on weekends with our picnics.
Now when I gaze at the hill there are often tears in my eyes; tears of anger and tears of sorrow.
Tears of anger because, despite overwhelming opposition from local ratepayers and residents, Clarence Council is actively supporting a private developer’s application to build a 120-room luxury hotel and restaurants on top of Rosny Hill, in the public nature reserve. This proposed development is huge and will span the full width of the top of the hill. It will be traumatising for all who live here during the building process and will have a huge impact on our quality of life thereafter, as well as a long-term visual impact on all those in the visual catchment of greater Hobart. Not only will my family’s personal sacred site be desecrated, but future generations of neighbourhood kids will be denied opportunities for imaginative play in a natural environment on the hill. Had I known that Clarence City Council would become greedy, shortsighted and willingly support the use of public land for private profit, I would have respectfully gone against my parents’ explicit wishes and left them in peace in another place in nature.
Courage to say no
RECENT reports of bullying and abuse of local councillors and aldermen are concerning. We elect these people to represent us and make complex decisions, and we need to actively support them.
I have spend my spare time trying to understand the impact of a development proposal for Rosny Hill. I have already spent time in past years considering bushfire management plans, a management plan for the hill, and joined consultations about the hill and its use. The council then ignored the findings of its own consultations, and without further notice or discussion, sought expressions of interest for development. Time and effort was devoted to reviewing a proposal from the Hunter Group to build a hotel complex covering a quarter of the reserve. This proposal was withdrawn without anyone being able to have their views considered.
A second proposal has now been advertised and unless I make a submission I will be excluded from the decision making process. As I walk around the hill and try to make sense of the Rosny Hill proposal, I look across Kangaroo Bay to large area where a similar development approved for Hunter Development, stands vacant, surrounded by fences. The developer has failed to commence works as required by the original development approval. I want my council to work, to be efficient and effective. I want councillors and aldermen to feel valued and have their efforts recognised. I wish, more importantly, that my elected representatives recognise past poor decision making and the have courage to reject the Rosny Hill proposal.
Wider implications
IT is understandable that a majority of Rosny and Montagu Bay residents oppose the proposed hotel on Rosny Hill Nature Recreation Area, but the development has far wider implications for the greater Hobart area, and Tasmania as a whole.
As part of an already diminishing tree skyline, Rosny Hill can be seen from many parts of the river, the city, and surrounding suburbs. Its spectacular views and peaceful environment is easily accessible to all Hobartians and visitors. Once this is built on, we can never get it back.
Even more scary is the fact that this proposed alienation of public land for private profit sets a worrying precedent for all other designated Nature Recreation Areas. What’s next after Rosny Hill? Bellerive Fort? Meehan Range? Trevallyn? There are plenty more Tasmanian treasures for the taking. In a crowded and ever more stressful world, is this what we want for our children and grandchildren? We would urge you to contact Clarence City councillors to support them in making the best decision possible for all our citizens.
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