Huon Valley Guessing Games
Surely Huon Valley Council (HVC) shouldn’t ever be seen to be even thinking of aiding or abetting non-legal activities? It was a thought that occurred to me when an innocuously labelled item came up for discussion at council’s November 19 meeting. It was Agenda Number 15.049/14 Request for Landowner’s Consent.
Council granted that consent, by a vote of 6-2, in what could be the first step in a process that ends up legalising, retrospectively, what seems to be a non-authorised jetty on the Huon River. (Councillors Liz Smith and Rosalie Woodruff voted against consent being granted. Councillors who voted for consent were Peter Coad, Lydia Eastley, Bruce Heron, Ian Paul, Pav Ruzicka and Ken Studley. Former deputy mayor Councillor Mike Wilson, who had earlier made a “declaration of interest”, left the council chamber when discussion of 15.049/14 commenced.)
The jetty in question, signed ‘Petty Sessions Jetty’, is adjacent to the Petty Sessions restaurant at the southern end of the Franklin foreshore.
When Councillor Bruce Heron observed that the building of the jetty was an “oversight”, a barely concealed titter ran though an uncharacteristically full public gallery (about 40) that included a fair sprinkling of Franklinites. Did Heron simply dream up the “oversight” view, or had someone convinced him that, in fact, that was the case? I know I would be surprised to discover that I had built such a substantial structure purely as a result of an “oversight”?
The bit of land for which “landowner’s consent” (council’s) was requested involves a short stretch of the foreshore alongside the Petty Sessions Jetty. The Franklin foreshore is largely Crown land, much of which is leased to the HVC.
The ‘Background’ in the council staff report, provided to enable councillors to understand the issue, included, inter-alia: “. . . Franklin Developments Pty Ltd has made a formal request for the council’s consent to lodge a development application to construct a jetty [under the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act (LUPA) 1993] . . . The council occupies the Franklin foreshore pursuant to a crown lease. For a development application involving council owned or administration land to be a validly made application . . . requires the application to be signed by the general manager and the application to be accompanied by written permission from the general manager for the making of the application.” The legally couched prose continues: “. . . It is important to note that providing consent to lodging of the development application does not bind council as a planning authority in any way . . .”
Then, under ‘Report’: “. . . The development includes the construction of a jetty — gangway and pontoon to enable boats to moor and alight to explore the Franklin Township. It is recommended that landowner’s consent be provided for the development as: ● the development is currently in situ [my italics]; ● it is consistent with previous uses of this area in relation to private jetties and moorings; ● the Franklin Foreshore Master Plan incorporates this development in this area.”
Building a substantial structure and then asking the authorising body to OK it sounds all a bit cart-before-the-horse to me.
Under ‘Risk implications’: “Any risks associated with the development will be dealt with through the planning approvals process. Failure to provide the required consent will mean that the developer will be unable to undertake the project.”
All of the above relates to the working jetty that came to the attention of Tasmanian Times on October 6 last — Franklin: A right pickle on the Petty Sessions’ foreshore — http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/article/franklin-a-right-pickle-on-the-petty-sessions-foreshore/ . A “public notice” on the jetty says: “This is a private jetty providing berthing facilities for authorised customers of Petty Sessions restaurant. Person using this facility does so at their own risk. Petty Sessions takes no responsibility for loss or damage . . .”
So, not only does a jetty that has suddenly appeared on, and just off, Crown land get constructed without a development application or permit; it also gets signed as “private”! Considering its unapproved status, who, in law, owns it?
Somewhere in the mix is a company called Franklin Development (or Developments) Pty Ltd. (Ireneinc, acting on behalf of the company, variously uses ‘Development’ and ‘Developments’ in its correspondence with HVC; and my unskilled efforts at searching the web have failed to turn up information on the exact form of the company’s name or of its officers — so let’s call it FD.)
FD gets a mention in a letter of October 9, 2014, to council from Ireneinc Planning, that says: “Ireneinc Planning has been engaged by Franklin Development Pty Ltd to prepare and lodge a development application in relation to land at the foreshore in Franklin adjacent to the Petty Sessions Gourmet Cafe and public recreational facilities. This application is for a jetty to be used for recreational boating activities.”
Then comes an intriguing sentence: “This jetty is a replaces the proposal applied for within DA134/2013, which was issued with an approval has for a jetty in the proximate location as that proposed. That’s how it was written. Don’t know what council made of that sentence, but I can’t see anywhere that it asked Ireneinc for an interpretation.
Council seems to be assuming that a development application will now come from FD for approval of a jetty that already exists? Nowhere can I find information about who it was that put the jetty there earlier this year, or who was contracted to build it. What does seem to be constant in all the documentation is that no permit was issued that would authorise its construction.
Many thousands of words have been generated inside council, and via Tasmanian Times, on the subject of jetties/moorings near the Petty Sessions restaurant (and about a jetty that may yet be built that was the subject of DA-134/2013, which was approved at HVC’s August 20 meeting this year. (That was an application for an 80-metre multi-pontooned jetty that was approved but with a 24-metre reduction in length — see http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/article/franklin-a-right-pickle-on-the-petty-sessions-foreshore/ .)
DA-134/2013 is the DA mentioned in Ireneinc’s garbled sentence quoted, in italics, above. Would it be unreasonable to surmise, should the existing but unapproved jetty ultimately get approval, that the italicised sentence above could be interpreted as saying FD would not then proceed with the project envisaged in DA-134/2013, for which it has been given approval?
As readers will appreciate, the circumstances surrounding the scene on the Huon River waterfront adjacent to the Petty Sessions restaurant are all very complicated, certainly far too complex for this simple observer to grasp in their entirety.
But it shouldn’t stop friends of the Franklin foreshore from mulling over questions they believe need answering about this unfortunate imbroglio. It is a situation that, before all else, raises questions about council’s vigilance of goings on within its own bailiwick; about activities that might suggest laws, rules and regulations have been ignored; and about council’s performance in relation to its competence in fulfilling its compliance responsibilities.
I believe that — no matter how much “consultation” goes on between applicants and councils — until an application has been approved, nothing at all should be done in terms of the physical implementation of a wish, a want or a need, either of an individual or an organisation. There should be no such things as “wink, winks” or “nod, nods” in municipal affairs. I’m not saying there has been any of either in this case, but it’s easy to get the impression that, down the years in the Huon Valley, these are not something that have never happened.
Two immediate questions that should be answered — if confidence (should there be any) is to be preserved in the role and performance of our valley council — are:
1. Why did council not impose conditions on its granting of “landowner’s consent” to FD “to the lodgement of the development application for the construction of a jetty . . .”? Previous “consents” for other pontoons have contained stringent conditions, especially regarding footpaths and foreshore maintenance.
The only condition that is in the motion that passed council on November 19 is one that council imposed upon itself. It reads: “The council will consider the development application at its discretion in accordance with the Land Use Planning Approvals Act 1993 and makes no commitment as to whether or not it will be approved in exercise of that discretion.”
But no conditions were imposed on the party that was granted “landowner’s consent” — and there is not a mention of the Franklin Foreshore Master Plan that was the subject of long deliberations by the now-defunct Franklin Township Committee.
2. Did council turn a blind eye to the construction of the Petty Sessions Jetty, thereby setting a precedent that might suggest that retrospective approval is still a possibility for those tempted to flout the laws, rules and regulations of our democratic system?
There is a case for various authorities to consider how exactly the situation at the southern end of Franklin has come about. And if there have been contraventions of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act, then appropriate penalties should be imposed on offending parties before steps are taken to either regularise the existence of the jetty or to order its removal.
While this Franklin foreshore situation should be resolved as soon as possible — a task primarily for the HVC (acting as a council and/or as a planning authority) — it must never be forgotten that, on this issue, the interests of the Franklin community as a whole have been largely ignored by various authorities. What has been happening on the Franklin foreshore bears little resemblance to what members of the Franklin Township Committee — working very much in tandem with the wishes of the community — had in mind.
On Wednesday evening, February 26, a public meeting was called in The Palais, Franklin, by the Franklin Progress Association to discuss the establishment of a sub-committee, under the auspices of the association, to work towards ensuring that developments in Franklin meet the needs of the community and work in its best interests. It attracted an attendance of more than 60 and many local organisations were represented. Said one person after that meeting: “We certainly don’t want to see what has been happening at south Franklin occur again.” — Bob Hawkins
