Margot Giblin

Valentine has been inclined, in the past, to ask pretty innocuous questions and make some cover all bases statements on debated items. Not tonight. Pertinent question followed relatively incisive probe. He had definitely sparked up in increasing the number, depth and clarity of his questions and comments. No meaningless queries, no blancmange pronouncements.

Hobart City Council
Development and Environmental Services Committee Meeting (DESC)
Monday 22 October 07
5pm

The Committee
Chair: Darlene Haigh
Rob Valentine, Eva Ruzicka, Helen Burnett, Philip Cocker
(all present)

SOMETIMES, while sitting through a Council meeting my mind wanders to the Californian newspaper editor who cannot, for love or bucket loads of money, get a local writer to cover council meetings.

The proceedings are beamed to two journalists in India who send back their reports for publication.

I cover Hobart City Council meetings because I think there are aspects of them worth sharing. Sometimes they’re good entertainment.

There’s a touch of the ancient tribal about it all. The wise ones sit around a vast table. The supplicant members of the public sit bunched together at one end of the room which is a red, cream and gold affair.

Representors (opposing an application) are invited to the wise ones’ table to give a maximum five minute defense of their viewpoint. They are followed by the applicant. Aldermen can ask questions of any speaker. The public gallery, often full at the start, is gradually deserted as most leave immediately their item has been dealt with.

I was a representor at this meeting and there’s no doubt about it – no matter how succinct you think you’re going to be, something odd happens when you start talking. You find yourself adding a bit here, emoting a bit there and going off the point with unnerving ease. Looks of stunned disbelief from aldermen don’t stop you. Ancient Mariner-like you demand attention to the finish. Leaping out of your seat with relief you are asked to remain seated to be questioned. Survive that and you still have to listen to the applicant shred your arguments with maddening effect. You don’t get to speak again.

This writer was not alone in straying from the prepared dot pointed notes.

In admirable defense of his intellectually disabled sister’s outlook from her unit’s deck a young man went well outside the planning scheme’s area of authority. He described how her view brings her good feelings associated with space, light and natural beauty. Her home was chosen precisely because it answered her particular intellectual and emotional needs. Her brother regarded these as being at risk from a planned neighbouring development. The committee was sympathetic, but the planning scheme doesn’t allow it to make decisions based on this sort of information.

A representative for the development’s designer then spoke. It was agreed that in addition to attempts already made to fit in with the streetscape and neighbours’ amenity further advice would be given that particular attention be paid to the visual/emotional needs of the neighbour most affected. Valentine checked on this neighbour’s precise rights in relation to sunlight, which are no less than 3 hours a day to 50% of open space and living area. This was assured by the application.

Approval of this proposal (in Stoke St New Town), was regarded as kissing an inevitable goodbye to one of the last big back gardens in the area. With more people wanting to live closer to the city these open spaces are disappearing. The irony of the loss of green space while reducing carbon emissions through centralization was noted.

The Titanic

Another agenda item brought another representor.

Mr Parker, spoke in defense of gardens facing development in Mary St North Hobart. He said they had been constructed over the same time span as that covered by the building and sinking of the Titanic, 1909 – 1912. For one delicious moment he seemed about to embark on a story associated with that event. Cocker’s face in particular was a picture of bemused anticipation. Ruefully conceding that the Titanic was ‘another story’ and that he realized aldermen were by now wanting to get home Mr Parker came back to saving the tree. If there is ever a built development on this site he will have done his bit to draw attention to its well aged oak.

Where Is Our Model?

When a proposed development for 38, 42, and 44 Argyle St came up Cocker asked for the model. He recalled that it had been agreed by Council, led by Freeman, that models be provided for significant proposals. He added that it wasn’t good enough that this hadn’t transpired.

The applicant matched any ‘dog ate homework’ efforts in his short history of the Lack of a Model. No-one in Tasmania could do it in the time-frame. A fee of $15000 had been agreed on with an interstate model maker. A late date notification that the model maker was ‘not in a position to provide the model’ had been received. ‘Regretfully our model maker let us down. I am apologetic’.

Valentine asked if 3D computer modeling on CDs for all aldermen might be available before the next Council meeting. This posed no problem and was was agreed to after some chat about the comparative deficiencies of built models. The consensus was that they are static, expensive, only look at the immediate building and cost a bomb to alter. There was some fondness expressed, however, for their tangibility.

Valentine also asked if it were true that a ceiling dome, similar to (and possibly the original of) the Theatre Royal was in the building to be demolished. Not so, but close by was the answer. The correct procedures, involving a registered archaeologist and, if necessary, the Tasmanian Heritage Committee will be in place for the development.

Burnett put the case for protecting sunshine in Wellington Walk. Ruzicka asked for advice on 4 star green rating to be included and hoped this development might put the brakes on the Port Authority’s desire to move the CBD seaward. Cocker said that while new car-parks left him cold the rest of the development was promising. Haigh went further, finding it ‘exciting’. Burnet was a lone no on the vote.

Whatever else the present Council election climate has brought it has sharpened up Valentine’s act at DESC. He may not be seriously challenged at the count for mayor but to be challenged at all and to be up for extra scrutiny for a few weeks hasn’t done any harm. On most agenda items Cocker, Burnett, Ruzicka and Haigh showed their usual diligent concern for their own, and sometimes each others, well established priorities.

Valentine has been inclined, in the past, to ask pretty innocuous questions and make some cover all bases statements on debated items. Not tonight. Pertinent question followed relatively incisive probe. He had definitely sparked up in increasing the number, depth and clarity of his questions and comments. No meaningless queries, no blancmange pronouncements.

The final decisions on all this meeting’s recommendations will be made by the full committee next Monday where they will be debated again. The current DESC committee members sit together in the furthest left cluster on Kevin Bonham’s graph. (TT: Your City Council sorted, right to left).

DESC is where an application goes through the first stage of aldermanic attention. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a broader representation of views here? Differences of opinion could start to be sorted before the item hits full Council, possibly saving time there and getting better value out of DESC meetings.

Overall DESC meetings offer an interesting chance for public and aldermen to connect in the time honoured form of a face to face encounter. Electronic communication of some information, such as applicant’s models or representors’ supporting evidence, makes sense but it would be a pity to ever lose these meetings. The personality of both aldermen and public as expressed and revealed in their physical presence carries, I think, precious and intangible information. No email could convey it nor a dictaphone pick it up.

The public are reminded that these aldermen have to get their minds around complex and often conflicting information, concerns and emotions. They see this process in action. They can see how individual councilors contribute and respond to each other and their electors’ stated concerns. The minutes can’t aim to capture the resultant colour and feeling of these meetings which I think are invaluable for some purposes. If there were felt to be a need in the community to lobby for change, for instance to allow loss of view to be a ground for objection to a development, then this would be the place to collect bountiful and compelling supporting evidence.

(The writer was a representor to the agenda item relating to an application for a partial change of use at 53 Runnymede St. Battery PPoint. DESC recommended it be refused with reasons.)