Although the original plans to build the controversial Gorge Hotel were rejected by the Resource Management and Planning Appeals Tribunal in late 2019, the developer, Josef Chromy’s JAC Group, submitted an amendment in mid-2021 to Launceston City Council’s Interim Planning Scheme that saw the project back on the drawing board. The Draft Amendment 66 was to allow a Specific Area Plan (SAP) for the Paterson Street site. Approval would enable construction of the nine-storey, 145-room proposal to proceed.
Original development application and appeal
The original development application (DA) for the Gorge Hotel was Initially approved by the council in June 2019. First advertised shortly before a public holiday there was little time for public comment. The DA also required no less than three amended public notices, giving rise to widespread community suspicion that the project had been hastily drawn up, was likely to be flawed, and was perhaps being rushed through to avoid public scrutiny. But while there were fears that important details involving the social, environmental and economic risks, as well as possible risks to public health, welfare and safety may either have been insufficiently considered, or dismissed and downplayed, the multiple public notices certainly allowed many more people to be aware of the development – and to lodge a submission. Strong community opposition to the project resulted in the formation of community group Launceston Heritage Not Highrise (LHNH) (https://www.facebook.com/LauncestonLowrise)
Members and supporters of LHNH were concerned that LCC’s outdated planning laws were failing to protect Launceston’s low-rise built heritage and its liveability characteristics that are widely valued and admired by residents and visitors alike. The proposed hotel was also seen as a further threat to the integrity of the Cataract Gorge, where plans to install cable car infrastructure had recently been rejected by councillors, in response to the overwhelming concern being expressed by the community about the noisy and visual intrusion cable cars would have on the gorge’s valued tranquillity and natural ambience.
With advice and support from the TCT, LHNH led the appeal that challenged LCC’s approval for the Gorge Hotel, which subsequently saw it rejected by RMPAT due to its significant size and scale. It was the size and scale, together with several other aspects of concern highlighted in the 60+ representations to the original DA, that RMPAT judged incompatible with the city’s character and existing streetscapes. Special Area Plan application and process The JAC Group, however, were not prepared to walk away and securing council approval for a SAP application allowed the project’s plans to be reassessed without any restrictions or concessions to the hotel’s height or overall footprint.
Although it received the tick of approval by LCC, the SAP also required the Tasmanian Planning Commission’s approval since it involved changes to the Interim Planning Scheme. This process required public hearings to be held so all the representors had an opportunity to comment or ask further questions. These hearings were held over two days towards the end of November 2021, in Launceston, but due to the number of representators wishing to speak, ask detailed questions and cross-examine JAC Group’s expert witnesses, no conclusion was achieved. It is understood the hearings will resume early in 2022. Principal representors Susie and Wei Cai, whose home and business would be seriously and detrimentally impacted by the development, summed up the general opposition to the proposed SAP in the statement that was read out:
• It does not achieve a strategic planning purpose
• It cannot be justified on economic or social grounds
• All it achieves is facilitating a proposed development which was rejected for good reason by the tribunal.
Among the other issues that were addressed in the representations were: concerns about the hotel applying to receive a gaming license that may give it casino status; the size of the site exceeding the size of the proposed hotel building, and a lack of detail in how that space would be filled; safety issues in the hotel’s construction and stability given a known characteristic of the site is soft silt sediment; the building’s dominance and visibility across the city; exaggerated and potentially unrealistic occupancy forecasts in a post-pandemic world; and the secrecy that surrounds the apparent plans the LCC has for the Margaret Street area, and that were inadvertently revealed or hinted at during the cross-examination process.
References: https://www.facebook.com/
Launceston Lowrise: / https://www.jacgroup.com.au/the-gorge-hotel
© 2021 Anne Layton-Bennett