Councillor Simon Behrakis blames fellow colleagues for Hobart housing crisis

A Hobart Alderman has blamed the city’s skyrocketing house prices on “anti-development” mindsets held by some of his colleagues in the chamber.

A Hobart councillor has blamed the city’s skyrocketing house prices on “anti-development” mindsets held by some of his colleagues in the chamber.

Hobart City Councillor Simon Behrakis made his accusation after Monday’s City Planning Committee meeting, where it was revealed that council had knocked back 92 residential developments over the last 12 months.

Hobart city. Picture: Richard Jupe.

Cr Behrakis said that companies such as Airbnb were often blamed for the housing crisis, but that only 39 short stay accommodation permits were greenlit during the same period.

“A cynic would say [councillors] are pushing the short-stay argument in an attempt to distract or steer the conversation away from their own responsibility,” Cr Behrakis said.

“Their attitudes towards development has been well-documented at this stage. What we find in many instances, is that the second there’s an excuse to knock something back, councillors will jump at it.”

Alderman Simon Behrakis. Picture Eddie Safarik

Cr Behrakis declined to name the councillors in question citing “fear of getting another code of conduct”, but said the voting record spoke for itself.

He said council should give developers more time and opportunity to revise their development applications, rather than reject them outright.

Hobart City mayor Anna Reynolds hit back at Cr Behrakis’ comments, saying that the current Hobart City Council was in fact one of the most “pro-development councils”.

Cr Reynolds said Cr Behrakis’ characterisation was neither fair nor reasonable, and that he was being selective in his use of statistics.

“The figure he didn’t reveal was that there were 370 residential dwellings approved in that 12 month period, and the 92 rejected dwellings he quotes from were units contained within just three projects, one of which he also voted against,” Cr Reynolds said.

Lord Mayor of Hobart Anna Reynolds. Picture: Chris Kidd

The project in question was a 20-townhouse development on Enterprise Road, which was unanimously rejected by council.

The other two projects that council knocked back were a 30-dwelling development in Davies Street and a 40-dwelling development on Macquarie street.

In regards to all three cases, Cr Reynolds maintained that there were legitimate heritage, design, and planning law reasons to reject the applications.

“We are a pro-development council. We have approved a record number of inner city apartments in the last 12 months. No other council in Hobart has ever approved more inner city residential apartments,” Cr Reynolds said.

“However we do have standards the community expects us to uphold. We uphold planning laws to try and get good results for Hobart, and that means occasionally there may be developments that don’t get approved.”

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