Two bitter opponents in a 10-year development dispute want NTCAT to make a decision

Two bitter opponents in a decade-long dispute over a seven-storey building agree on one thing. It’s time to make a decision.

Frustration is boiling over at inability of the legal system to decide on a decade-long planning dispute that has been mired in legal argument and stalled in the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The contentious Elysium Green development planned for Blake Street, The Gardens, has pitted Darwin-based developer Kalhmera Pty Ltd against community campaigners People for Planning, which still objects to the project’s impact.

In a bizarre twist, the extraordinary five-month delay for an outcome to the planning decision has even united the two protagonists in the dispute, who have both criticised the unprecedented delay and called for the matter to be resolved.

Even Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby has weighed in, noting the process has “dragged on”, with government powerless to force the NTCAT to release its most recent decision.

The Elysium Green development has been around for a decade without a decison being made.

In August 2021 the Development Consent Authority approved with amendments an application to develop 67 x 2 and 34 x 3 bedroom apartments with ground floor commercial tenancies in a twin-towered seven storey building, including basement at 4 Blake Street.

Conditions were placed around traffic, stormwater disposal, street-front awnings, damage to existing infrastructure and waste management.

Originally proposed to be a 118 unit complex, Kalhmera downsized the project to 101 rooms but residents retained their objections because of its impact on the low density neighbourhood.

The drawn-out planning saga began in 2015 when former Planning Minister David Tollner backed a rezoning at Lot 7820 – beside the old Channel Nine studio - from community use to a specific use zone, allowing a specified residential developmental at the site.

Despite Supreme Court actions in 2021 and 2024, and multiple trips to the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the dispute continues to fester.

Last year the Supreme Court torched the NTCAT’s finding the Development Consent Authority’s 2021 Elysium Green approval was a “manifest error”, telling the NTCAT to focus its decision around an application’s planning merits.

Because the NTCAT had not considered all issues, the matter was sent back to NTCAT to make a fresh decision.

The Supreme Court found the project was a “landmark” and had “amenity”, but following its August 2024 decision and a subsequent hearing by the NTCAT in January, there has been silence.

The Gardens' residents have been fighting a seven-storey development for a decade. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

A further NTCAT hearing set for March was scrapped, and key parties are waiting for the tribunal to finally make a ruling – including the Attorney-General.

There is also a Supreme Court decision outstanding on costs.

“We know this matter has dragged on for a long time but this is entirely a matter for NTCAT,” Ms Boothby said.

Planning for People spokesman Hugh Bradley called on the NTCAT to make its decision public.

“Planning for People clearly wants the objective that they seek which is a less concentrated development in a low development area,” Mr Bradley said.

“But apart from anything else it’s very good for society to be able to finalise matters such as this. The way in which the Act resolves different views should need to be made more efficient.

“We’ve now gone back something like six or seven hearings and we haven’t got a result, which must be very frustrating both for the developer and the community, who are living in expectation of what’s going to happen.”

Kalhmera’s 2024 application for costs has also not yet been handed down by the Supreme Court.

Kalhmera Pty Ltd managing director Michael Makrylos said in his view, some of the objections were “frivolous”, including how Elysium Green’s gardens would be watered.

“It doesn’t take five months to consider issues that have no value or purpose,” Mr Makrylos said.

“We had a directions hearing on January 14 and NTCAT had to respond to Planning for People’s claims. Why has it taken five months?”

Originally published as Two bitter opponents in a 10-year development dispute want NTCAT to make a decision