Everybody loses

MR JOHN PADAS, the architect of the newly approved 3 Victoria Street development adjacent Macquarie House claims in the press [Mercury January 10], that the development approval represents a ‘..win, win’ for all concerned. On the contrary, everybody loses.

The Tasmanian Heritage Council loses, as the custodian of Tasmania’s significant heritage, by allowing a historic place listed on its Register to be thoroughly compromised by an
unsympathetic new development, which will encapsulate the historic former Macquarie Hotel dining room within a glass box, and result in the demolition of the historic eastern skillion to the former dining room structure. The Council has recognised that the place has ‘…important and significant associations with people prominent in Tasmanian History, for instance Governor Lachlan Macquarie, Governor Sorell, and Thomas William Birch’, but still provided conditional approval for the development.

The Hobart City Council loses because its principled opposition to this particular development has been compromised by the Tasmanian Heritage Council’s [earlier] works approval.

The two Councils should be partners in the conserving of Hobart’s significant early C19th heritage, however they now appear to be publicly at odds, and the authority of the Council to administer Hobart’s heritage has again been compromised.

The developer Mr Fahed Elali, loses because, as owner of the two remnant [and conjoined] Macquarie Hotel properties, he had the rare opportunity to unite the former Macquarie Hotel [now known as Macquarie House] with its Dining Room, and thus create a cohesive, and highly significant historical precinct. Such a precinct could still have provided a commercial development opportunity fronting Victoria Street.

Finally the community of Hobart, and Tasmania, loses because yet another element of Hobart’s significant early C19th heritage will be compromised, and in part demolished.