Media release – Tony Mulder, Clarence City Councillor, 22 March 2023
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The Premier’s intervention in Kangaroo Bay is another example of the Government riding roughshod over local government and its own planning laws. Does this and the Skylands intervention herald new legislation to override its own planning laws and local government responding to its community? Will the government legislate as Paul Lennon did when his own Planning Commission wouldn’t approve the Bell Bay Pulp Mill? Would such laws get through the party dominated Upper House?
Whether you support a Kangaroo Bay hotel, cable car, football stadium, saturation housing on Droughty Point, or a mega international hotel on the Kangaroo Bay waterfront, and some of them I do, the government sets the policies and rules. It legitimises community engagement through its planning laws and local government. Just because they don’t get the result they want, that is no reason to change the rules after the event.
My concern is the sale of prime public land to private investors, be they domestic or foreign. If a hotel or other commercial use is warranted on public land, then the land should be leased as is the case with the Rosny Hill proposal.
At every turn Chambroad has been secretive. Never once have they revealed the identity of the hotel operator. Does one exist? If the hotel is so iconic and world class, one would have thought the ‘global hotel chain’ would be falling over itself to be associated with the project. Or is the whole scenario an attempt to foist a completely different use on land that will, but for council’s ‘buy back’, fall into private ownership?
To their credit, Chambroad’s latest proposal removes the multistorey cold ‘Berlin wall’ of buildings on Cambridge Road and scales down the footprint of the hotel. But even this proposal was presented to councillors just three days before the meeting to decide its fate and embargoed to the very hour of the meeting. Councillors were deliberately barred from consulting the community we represent before deciding the project’s fate. Is it any wonder that 83% of councillors lacked faith in Chambroad. Is it a coincidence that 83% of respondents to Council’s survey said ‘buy it back’?
The solution is to exercise the ‘buy-back’ and encourage Chambroad and others to submit new proposals to develop the site on leased land. Ambush and secrecy is not the way to achieve a social licence. Please Premier tread a little more warily than your predecessor who got us into this mess in the first place!
Luke Edmunds MLC, Shadow Minister for Local Government & Planning, 22 March 2023
Liberal intervention won’t help Kangaroo Bay
Jeremy Rockliff’s threat to intervene in the failed Chambroad development at Kangaroo Bay is the last thing that will bring about development on the site.
Considering the Liberals’ abysmal track record at delivering projects such as the underground bus mall, Mac Point, Northern Suburbs Rail, the fifth lane to Kingston, the cable car and the Tamar River Bridge, any Liberal intervention in Kangaroo Bay is just going to set up the community for even more delays.
If the Premier does intervene, he will soon learn that the best pathway towards development is to move on from Chambroad – just as Clarence Council plans to do.
Chambroad has had every break in the book over nearly a decade.
It was supported by all levels of government and granted several extensions and concessions by Clarence City Council and despite the infinite resources of Chambroad, the Coordinator General and local lobbyists the site lays barren.
I sincerely hope that the Premier is not picking an unnecessary and petty fight with Clarence City Council as payback for the council censuring his mate Michael Ferguson via a 10-1 vote on Monday night.
Labor wants to see development that benefits the community, and the last thing that will achieve that at Kangaroo Bay is intervention from the incompetent Liberals.
Statement – Rosny Hill Friends Network, 22 March 2023
KANGAROO BAY TAKE-OVER
State Premier Jeremy Rockcliff, and Minister Michael Ferguson, plan to over-ride the decision of a democratically elected
Clarence City Council to reject Chambroad’s application for a third extension to their Development Application (and the subsequent expiry of the buy-back clause).
Chambroad is seeking legal challenge, arguing that they have already spent $12 million on the proposal. That was their choice, and we are not responsible for their business decisions.
They are also arguing that this is counter to the agreement reached in 2017.
The community understood that agreement came with a buy-back clause subject to timely development, in accordance with normal planning laws.
If Chambroad was given to understand differently, then either they or the community have been misled.
What other agreements might the State Government have reached with Chambroad prior to the Clarence City Council agreement of 2017?
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You are invited to the upcoming PMAT (Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania) public meeting at the Rosny Bowls Club, Tuesday 4 April 2023 at 6 pm.
PMAT is very concerned about the current Local Government Review and what it could mean for the future of Local Government in Tasmania. The meeting will cover concerns such as removing Councils as a Planning Authority, reducing opportunity for planning appeals, forced amalgamations and the State Government takeover of planning.
For more details, contact Sophie Underwood, State Coordinator – PMAT (Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania)
Email [email protected]
