*Pic: Shape of things to come on the Franklin waterfront? The approved, but not built, pontoon is on the left.
Huon Valley Guessing Games
It’s the silly season, the time of the year when our focus on controversial community issues tends to lapse. It’s a time, too, when advertisements can go unnoticed. To support my point, even one of my acquaintances, long deeply concerned about the illegal and unapproved pontoon jetty that floats at Franklin, admitted he had been caught unawares when I drew his attention this week to a “Notice of Application for Permit”.
The application — DA-239/2014, for a floating pontoon jetty near Franklin’s Petty Sessions restaurant — was advertised by HVC on January 8, 2016, with the regulation 14-day closing date for submissions of midnight January 21 (today).
This isn’t, as one might imagine, an application for a jetty yet to be built; it’s for the one that has been there, in council’s own words, “unapproved” and “illegal”, since early in 2014.
It’s only when you get into the details of the 30-page application ( see https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwE8lV917zoDeTNqbTBFT1J4QVU/view?pref=2&pli=1 ) that it becomes apparent that council did not receive the permit application in question until December 17, 2014, several months after the jetty was constructed by person or persons unknown. Ownership is claimed by the proprietors of Petty Sessions restaurant, Franklin Developments Pty Ltd.
A few points:
— No permission was requested to build this jetty, and council apparently took no action to prevent its construction.
— The jetty stretches out into the Huon River from Crown land leased to council, not from land leased or owned by the organisation that claims ownership.
— The signage claims the jetty as private property of the Petty Sessions restaurant.
— It was council that told me, by email in mid-2015, that the structure was (and presumably still is) illegal and unapproved.
The jetty’s history is well documented in other Tasmanian Times articles — http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/article/huon-valley-guessing-games-double-vanishing-act-down-in-the-huon/, http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/article/open-letter-4m-lost-an-illegal-jetty-.-.-/, and http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/article/franklins-unapproved-jetty-questions-questions/ — so there’s no need to go into detail again.
Few would describe the existing jetty (which the permit application wants to modify) as an eyesore; in fact, it sits quite harmoniously at the riverside and wouldn’t look much different by the time it was modified as requested by those who claim ownership. (I suspect the ownership of the jetty might be uncertain, having been constructed attached to Crown land leased by HVC, and the fact that it is floating without authority on a waterway owned by the State.)
What is concerning about the whole sorry saga is:
1. That, by imposing this structure without authority on the Franklin waterfront, whoever chose to flout the rules and regulations of various official bodies — including, presumably, the State Government, HVC, the Tasmanian Planning Commission and MAST (Marine and Safety Tasmania) — appears not to have been brought to book and subjected to appropriate penalties;
and
2. Franklin Developments already has approval (see minutes of the HVC meeting of August 20, 2014) to build another pontoon jetty, a few metres to the south (and about twice the size) of the existing illegal and unapproved jetty.
Until more is known about these two issues, it is not surprising that observers of events on the Franklin waterfront (including, among others, huge spending of public money on public facilities near Petty Sessions restaurant) remain askance — and wondering, like me, if they, too, with no official authority, can go down to their nearest waterside and build a jetty of their own.
Franklin’s unapproved and illegal jetty is not the first example I have noticed that convinces me that, in the Huon Valley, there is a tendency at times to do things differently from communities elsewhere more inclined to show proper respect for the rules.
• Treeger in Comments: A recent letter to the Huon News from visiting Canadian sailors mentioned their surprise at the Council’s use of Roundup weed killer on the banks of the Huon at Franklin. The letter went on to say how many local authorities around the world have banned Roundup in favour of steam or vinegar (something the Huon should be able to produce from bad grapes). Are the fish farm operators aware of the amount of herbicides entering their stock’s environment? It also reminds me of cherry farmers spraying on windy days, with said spray being ingested by said livestock. All produce coming from the “clean green tas brand”. HVC should be concentrating on controlling such practises as it becomes more exposed to casual verification of visitors and “outsiders”.
