The blue line blocking our new housing

Arbitrary lines between suburbs frustrate development, says Brendan Blomeley

THE Southern Tasmanian Regional Land Use Strategy is badly out of date and needs an urgent overhaul.

The strategy, which came into effect in 2011 under Labor planning minister Bryan Green, is so out of date it cites “peak oil” as a concern.

With our state and the world in a COVID-19 induced recession, the idea of not having enough oil to power our economies could not be further from anyone’s minds. Indeed, a few months ago, the price of oil was negative.

Since 2011, not only has the government changed and numerous ministers overseen planning, the economy has gone from recession in 2013 to growth and now to top of the pops in Australia (and back into recession again, thanks to COVID).

In 2011 population growth in Tasmania was flat; last year it grew at the fastest rate in 30 years, the vast majority of in southern Tasmania. In 2018, Hobart and the southeast grew by nearly 4000 people (1.5 per cent), while the North and North-West only grew by 0.8 and 0.6 per cent.

Clarence alone grew by more than 700 people, and the adjacent Council area of Sorell by nearly 400, an increase of nearly 3 per cent.

While it remains to be seen exactly how COVID-19 will affect our population growth, it seems logical that with our sea borders and moat between us and mainland Australia we will continue to attract people seeking a relative safe haven.

This has had serious implications for transport, making the airport interchange upgrade and start of the long-promised Derwent ferry service, something I have long championed, even more important.

It has also had significant impact on housing availability, and the availability of land for new houses.

The strategy forecasts the need for 36,000 more homes in southern Tasmania between 2008 and 2035, yet with population swelling by nearly 4000 in one year, these forecasts are hopelessly out of date. So too is Appendix 1 of the Southern Tasmanian

Regional Land Use Strategy, the Urban Growth Boundary.

This is essentially an arbitrary blue line on a map of Hobart which delineates “urban” areas from “the rest”.

While I have no doubt there was some rigour involved in drawing this line, today, much of it appears to have no rhyme nor reason.

For example, while much of Old Beach is within the Urban Growth Boundary, Otago, just next door — and closer to the city — is not.

Kingston is urban but Blackmans Bay is apparently not. Central Lauderdale is out — but Droughty Point is in — as a “greenfield development precinct.”

These sorts of arbitrary lines inevitably create anomalies and unfairness, and they are very quickly outdated.

So we end up with situations like the example at Mornington, where a 78dwelling subdivision on the corner of Cambridge and Pass roads can’t proceed because it is on the wrong side of the Urban Growth Boundary, yet dozens of homes are being built just over the fence.

Yes, we do need to manage urban sprawl, and we should be aiming to sensibly density our urban areas before spreading out further.

But we all know there will always be opposition to densification (just look at Hobart City Council in recent years); and there will always be a need for greenfield sites for affordable homes.

The state government has been promising to review the land use strategy for several years but nothing appears to be happening. Councils, out of frustration, are starting to go it alone with requests to the minister for adjustments to the Urban Growth Boundary —– which can be done, with much difficulty.

While understandable, this is far from ideal because rather than having a co-ordinated approach to land use planning in southern Tasmania, the existing arbitrary Urban Growth Boundary is just going to get even more arbitrary.