LAUNCESTON'S COUNCIL SHIFTS THE GOAL POSTS AND IT COSTS AND HURTS RATEPAYERS

 •  J COLLIER QUESTION 

May 2021 

LAUNCESTON'S COUNCIL SHIFTS THE GOAL POSTS AND IT COSTS AND HURTS RATEPAYERS 

Following the Council's meeting the question still hanging in the air is: 

Has Launceston City Council been in collusion with the JAC Group in respect of the drafting of this Specific Area Plan and can COUNCIL assure the community that no inducements of any kind have been received by elected representatives, or Council staff, to facilitate this planning amendment; – ratepayers and the community are very concerned and cynical in regard to this whole process? ... Read the full text here 

Boiled right down to the essentials: 

•  The JAC Group submitted a Development Application to the City of Launceston to build a high rise hotel and it was approved despite there being an aggrieved property owner and a network of ratepayers challenging the application.

•  The approval was challenged and approval was overruled by the planning tribunal. 

•  Launceston's council regrouped and has accepted an application from the developer to change the city's planning provisions in order to accommodates the JAC Group's plans and aspirations and on the evidence at considerable expense to ratepayers 

•  An aggrieved property owner funded her appeal to the planning tribunal via a substantial loan and her appeal was upheld. The aggrieved property owner won her case! 

•  The the aggrieved 'developer' seemingly appealed to the council to 'move the goal posts' and the evidence points to the council jumping as high as the developer wanted it seems they would and the outcome slipped through its May 20 Council Meeting without a glitch. Now the aggrieved 'property owner' loses her case, and her money, and seemingly the developer wins thanks to Council! 

•   The now 'developer friendly' councillors take umbrage at the suggestion that they might have been induced to use ratepayer's money to satisfy the aspirations of a developer.

Furthermore, they feign incredulity at the proposition that council make the 'aggrieved property owner an ex gratia payment' to compensate her for her losses after winning her appeal and it having it potentially nullified. 

There is that age old observation that goes ..."if it looks like a duck, and quakes like a duck and it craps all over the place just like a duck, its a good bet that it is in fact a duck". This is the kind of bush wisdom that colours peoples perceptions of what they are seeing and hearing here. 

It's obvious that before the meeting the councillors got together to get all their ducks lined up or granted leave to stay away. For the Mayor to step down from his podium when things get a bit testy in order to protest his and councillor' innocence only compounds the perception that something is not quite right. 

Then again, that Shakespearian phrase that goes "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" somehow resonates in the chamber and beyond replete with all its innuendo as the Mayor sort of invites anyone to take a look at his bank account.

Now there is an offer that cannot really be delivered upon.

Apparently, another councillor fired off an email threatening all sorts things that boiled down to its essentials was exemplar of 'bullying if true'. The whiff of 'whatever' nonetheless lingers.

In other jurisdictions all this would be probably be more than enough to spark some kind of integrity inquiry, but not in Tasmania. In other jurisdictions councils have been sacked for what such inquiries have turned up. In Queensland local government legislation has been changed when this kind of contention started to 'look and quake like a duck'

The proposal needs to come back to Council as a Development Application but when it does the way seems pretty clear for approval. Yet as time moves on this class of development becomes less and less relevant given the imposts they place on urban places. 

They become less and less sustainable in a world where the imperatives of climate change become increasingly evident and move closer to front of mind considerations.

However this crop of councillors and planners may well see themselves  in even greener pastures; or in their graves; or sitting in their rocking chairs somewhere; taking with them their spoils of incumbency. Like a snail we all leave a trail, it is that silver track that says where we have been and where we went – and inevitably there is a smell to it too.

Somehow this story smells like it is not going to fade quickly.

Dr Luther Blissett

President Neoism (Tas)