South Arm land hopes

Council report backs plans for residential subdivision

A BLOCK of land in southern Tasmania that a developer failed to subdivide in four attempts — and even took his case to the High Court of Australia — is set to be developed by new proponents.

The Clarence City Council will consider at its meeting on Monday an application for 9 Marsh St and 33 Spitfarm Rd, Opossum Bay, for a 16-lot residential subdivision

JESSICA HOWARD

on the South Arm peninsula.

Each lot would have an area of at least 1000 sqm.

The application has been recommended for approval by council staff, which is a big turn around for the site’s extensive history.

There had been four failed applications in attempts to subdivide the land by the previous owner Darryl Howlin — twice in 2005 and once each in 2007 and in 2017.

All four applications were refused by council and challenged before the Resource Management and Planning Appeal Tribunal — and went all the way up to the Supreme Court, the Full Court and the High Court of Australia.

The site was bought by AJ Carr Development Corporation in May last year for $915,000.

The Carrs are also behind the huge proposed subdivision at Droughty Point, which is facing some setbacks because of COVID-19 as much of the team is located in the US.

The Opossum Bay proposal received four representations against it.

Concerns were raised about the potential increase in traffic, inadequate road infrastructure, the style of the development and the environmental impact that would come through stormwater and on-site wastewater runoff.

“Council’s engineers acknowledge that although there are deficiencies with Spitfarm Rd, it is not considered that the proposal will have a detrimental impact on the users of the road,” the council officer’s report said.

“The subject site is zoned ‘village’, will form an extension of an existing urban area and will be afforded the highest level of access to both local and regional recreational opportunities.”

Developer David Carr said if the council did approve the application on Monday, he hoped to have blocks on the site for sale by Christmas.

“Because we’ve ground to a halt with Droughty Point, and like a shark you’ve got to keep swimming or you drown, I need to sell a bit more land,” he said.