HCC: Decisions, decisions …

Margot Giblin Citizen Reporter

Hate to mention it but Batty Point did come up next in the shape of nominations to the Battery Point Advisory Committee. This little group exists because the suburb it represents has its own planning scheme. The potential for it to effect decisions in that benighted suburb makes change, diversity and balance on it important. It was therefore interesting to see a name not already worn out by over-use — ‘one Mr Brendan Connolly, being a resident of that part of the District south of Quayle Street’ replacing Mr David Edwards from the same area. Connolly, along with Mrs Gwenda Sheridan for the National Trust, Mr Bruce Churchill of town planning expertise and Mr Phil Taylor for the slipyards, join, for two years. Those who still have a year of their term to run are Mrs Sandra Champion for the northern end of the Point, Mrs June Noble for town planning and Mr John McIntosh as a business representative.

Hobart City Council
Open Council Meeting
Monday 13th November 5pm

Aldermen
Present : Lord Mayor Rob Valentine, Deputy Lord Mayor Eva Ruzicka,
Darlene Haigh, Jeff Briscoe, Helen Burnet, Ron Christie, John Freeman, Eric Hayes and Marti Zucco
Apologies: Philip Cocker
Leave of Absence: Peter Sexton, Lyn Archer

Want to improve your life by making changes to your home? In the really big board game of What will the Neighbours Think?, the HCC let some players through and stopped others in their tracks.

So who got what they were after and who didn’t?

Applications for changes at 6 Knocklofty Terrace West Hobart, 188 Collins St. and 20 Kirby Court West Hobart got the go ahead, with conditions applying, while the applicants for 48 Faraday St. West Hobart and 321 Davey St. South Hobart were knocked back.

The Faraday St decision, not to allow a major extension in the form of a 2nd storey deck, was a triumph for sun being allowed to continue to shine ‘where the wife sits and knits’, as the next door neighbour had put it.

The decision on the existing guest house at 321 Davey prevents it also using on-site facilities for activities by the general public. Examples given by the applicant for such future use were ‘cocktail drinks or a visiting lecture from a member of the arts’. The knock back came down to the fact that, as Jeff Briscoe put it so clearly, the place is a B&B. In a residential area.

Upmarket, calling itself boutique, ‘tastefully’ done up to heritage standards, much money spent on improvements, but, for planning purposes, naught but a humble B&B. Briscoe conceded the owners mightn’t like to hear it called this but with his usual straight from the lip way of talking he named it for what it is, not what it might like to be.

Despite its ‘rare ambience’, and its ‘registering on the international radar’ it’s not going to be allowed ‘to go to the next stage of being a public function centre’. Cocktails and the arts can translate as booze, people, noise, traffic and nowhere to park in anyone’s neighbourhood.

Other aldermen spoke with less clarity against the application. Darlene Haigh, fondly invoking the spirit of her deceased husband, delivered a little ‘Your Home is Your Castle’ homily. In it she urged the neighbours of 321 to ‘fight for their right’ to retain their residential amenity by preventing any serious castle aggrandizing nearby.

Eva Ruzicka when first faced with the application said she thought ‘it’s a difficult one’, and went on to share, breath by breath, her valiant struggle to get a grip. She had been, she said, to talk to affected residents about giving it a go, a sort of trial run to see how things before reporting back to council. They declined the offer of becoming the local police force, thanks.

As Ruzicka went on to deliver more information than anyone could possibly need or absorb the silence of other aldermen became riveting. The vote that clarifies where they stand on an issue is eloquence enough for some. It would be a ridiculously long night if they all wanted equal time in the torch-light.

Hate to mention it but Batty Point did come up next in the shape of nominations to the Battery Point Advisory Committee. This little group exists because the suburb it represents has its own planning scheme. The potential for it to effect decisions in that benighted suburb makes change, diversity and balance on it important. It was therefore interesting to see a name not already worn out by over-use — ‘one Mr Brendan Connolly, being a resident of that part of the District south of Quayle Street’ replacing Mr David Edwards from the same area. Connolly, along with Mrs Gwenda Sheridan for the National Trust, Mr Bruce Churchill of town planning expertise and Mr Phil Taylor for the slipyards, join, for two years. Those who still have a year of their term to run are Mrs Sandra Champion for the northern end of the Point, Mrs June Noble for town planning and Mr John McIntosh as a business representative.

Some difficulties on Bend 4 of Nelson Rd

What else happened?

Some difficulties on Bend 4 of Nelson Rd are seemingly insoluble to everyone’s satisfaction both on council and on the bend, even with the insertion of a bollard. Lord Mayor Rob Valentine trusted that the resultant compromise will work and that ‘sanity will prevail’. Great believer in commonsense, our Rob.

Anything else?

Upgrading of Maning Avenue, use of Salamanca Square for promotions, calls for tender for Carols by the Bay, ceasing council representation on the Migrant Resource Centre Board, adoption of a new policy on re-imbursement of Aldermanic expenses, preparation of a new economic development strategy — all these went through with no discussion and blissful unanimous approval.

To Lenah Valley next and specifically to 270 Lenah Valley Road, in relation to which a petition with 330 names had been tabled at the opening of council business. This petition objected to a possible subdivision of 6 acres into 16 residential allotments. It also asked Council to purchase the land to be retained as a public park.

Alderman Burnet now proposed the motion that Council ‘further consider a report canvassing the options … particularly in relation to the environmental, cultural and historical elements of the local area before a final decision is made as to its future.’

Such a development would affect many things including the Lady Franklin Gallery. Designed by James Blackburn and opened in October 1843 it represented a miniature Parthenon among the gum trees, and still does. The many uses and abuses it has weathered have seen some changes including the replacement of a slate roof with corrugated iron. Its basic integrity, simplicity and charm remain intact and it is now regarded as an important piece of Hobart’s cultural heritage.
Discussion by aldermen at this council meeting revealed an illuminating variety of views on the gallery’s namesake.
Burnet referred to Lady Franklin as ‘quite a woman’. This bubble of admiration was deftly burst by Briscoe’s assessment of her as ‘a meddling woman’ concerned only with the upper crust, disliking convicts and forcing her husband to embark on his fatal journey to the North West Passage despite discouraging omens in relation to his health, age and his total lack of desire to go.

Haigh, happy as ever to throw in an original mix of fuzzy personal and a bit of fact declared Lady Franklin to have been ‘a naughty, naughty lady’ for having sent her husband somewhere, not sure where, North Pole, South Pole, does it really matter? Not to Alderman Haigh.

Freeman’s evening of silence was broken to say that Burnet’s motion was good — that the result of this venture of Lady Franklin’s was worthwhile. Its portico looked out to ‘a superb sylvan view, down through the valley to the River Derwent — a view now obliterated by roof tops.’ ‘The building remains’, said Freeman, ‘a little gem out there’.

Valentine contributed the one fact that everyone already seemed aware of and could agree on — that the choice of site for the Greek folly, now gallery, was a result of it being on the route of the original highway through the area.

To get there now by bus take Metro Route 6,7,8,9 or 10 to Stop G.