Planning not ‘too hard’

THURSDAY, JULY 4, 2019 themercury.com.au SUBSCRIPTIONS 1300 696 397 HOBART’S Lord Mayor has rejected claims the city is “too hard” for developers, saying the vast majority of proposals sail through the approvals process.

But the proponent of a $30 million development slated for the site of the Welcome Stranger Hotel in Davey St says council isn’t helping ease the housing crisis.

Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said most developments went through with little trouble. Council figures show that the value of building approvals has risen from $210 million in 2016 to $444 million in 2018. There were 891 planning applications made last year, of which just 11 were refused.

Project spokesman Quinten Villanueva yesterday said the Welcome Stranger site might never be redeveloped after the council’s planning committee on Monday recommended the proposal for 52 apartments be rejected. The full council will consider the application next week.

Alderman Reynolds said the council had done all it could to help the developers of the Welcome Stranger site help to lodge an application that complied with the planning rules.

“Our Hobart Urban Design Panel met with the developers on two occasions in October 2018 and June 2019,” she said.

“This panel is a group of professional peers — mostly non-council, private sector architects, planning development experts. This group is at arm’s length from the council but they are tasked with working with large project developers to give them feedback.

“On both occasions the developers were given clear and constructive feedback from the Urban Design Panel on the good elements of the proposal and the elements that would be challenging to pass under our planning rules.

“They simply chose to nore this advice.”

Alderman Simon Behrakis said the figures painted an inaccurate picture.

“For the Lord Mayor to pull out the figure of 891 development applications as proof of a job well done by council in the igmidst of a housing crisis, is extremely disingenuous, considering roughly only 20 per cent of those applications relate to the provision of housing,” Ald Behrakis said.

“Of the building permits issued last year, only 136 were for the provision of new housing, which is less than a quarter of the net population increase, according to Treasury, of 787.

“If this trend continues the housing stress felt by so many will only worsen as the deficit in available housing compounds each year.”