Talking Point: Let council’s vote be the end of the cable car saga
The cable car has been judged against the management plan and planning scheme requirements and been deemed a failure. Its only hope now lies in special legislation, writes VICA BAYLEY.
Hobart & South
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THE Wellington Park Management Trust’s historical notes identify 1905 as the year of “the first application … for an aerial tramway from Cascades to the summit (in the following hundred years at least seven applications for a similar cable car concept would be made, all strongly protested by citizens of Hobart).”
In 1906, Mt Wellington was vested in the Hobart City Council as a public park. In 2014 it was given the Aboriginal name kunanyi, recognising 40,000-plus years of Aboriginal ownership and cultural significance.
The current shocker is the eighth cable car proposal. Again, strongly protested by citizens, evidenced by the 72 per cent of representations objecting and calling on councillors to refuse a permit. Sensibly, nine out of 12 councillors did.
The developers have had a crack, they have expended their best effort and they have been found wanting. This project is toxic and non-compliant.
As a volunteer community campaign dedicated to protecting kunanyi, we thank the efforts of everyone who made a representation, spread the word, contacted a councillor or otherwise stood up to counter the cable car. The community response has been overwhelming.
This is in part because the cable car proposal is not really a transport solution.
It’s a land grab, for exclusive access to undeveloped real estate via privatisation of publicly owned and long-reserved land. This for thousands of square metres of private commercial floorspace on a mountain summit with Hobart’s most iconic view.
It brings mass tourism to the mountain and, as demonstrated in the expert advice provided to Hobart City councillors, the development would “diminish the Park’s tourism, recreational, cultural and landscape values as a result of its scale, mechanisation and emissions.”
This concept has haunted Hobartians for over a century, at a cost to community cohesion and truly sustainable ideas to manage public visitation.
The council’s vote can and should be the end of it.
While we recognise the planning process and a failed proponent’s right to appeal against a refusal, with rights comes responsibility.
Given community opposition, the fact this was the proponent’s best effort, the extent of the grounds of refusal and the cost to the community of enduring an appeal, we think it’s the responsibility of the developer and its investors to let their ambition and expectation go and abandon this proposal.
Stop flogging a dead horse.
An appeal will be expensive, to the community and cable car investors.
Community members will again be placed on tenterhooks. Shareholders will throw good money after bad.
Funding an appeal appears more akin to prolonging an ideological battle than pursuing a legal challenge with merit.
Irrespective, it will refocus attention on the deficiencies of the cable car development application and with 21 clear grounds of non-compliance, it is difficult to envisage success on any, let alone all of them.
The 21 grounds of refusal go to the heart of why kunanyi is protected and expose project failures anchored to size, location and operation. These are not things that can be tweaked. Indeed, post appeal the 21 grounds of refusal could increase, if parties to the appeal successfully bring more issues to the Tribunal for its consideration.
The developers have had a crack, they have expended their best effort and they have been found wanting. This project is toxic and non-compliant.
Since day one this cable car has traded on arrogance and entitlement, but it has underwhelmed every step of the way.
It’s no surprise therefore, in the wake of the council vote, to hear cable car supporters cry foul, with shrill calls of bias and obstruction including unsubstantiated allegations that question the professional integrity of council staff and expert consultants.
There’s even a call for a statewide referendum, as if the planning and management grounds against which this development fails are somehow secondary to a process usually reserved for issues of moral or constitutional consideration.
Comparing a referendum on a non-compliant cable car to the 1969 ballot over the issuing of Tasmania’s (and Australia’s) first casino licence is laughable.
What’s not so funny is special legislation from the Gutwein government, to cut out the council process and compulsorily acquire publicly owned, reserved land for a private project the experts advise fails to demonstrate “significant long-term social or economic community benefit”.
Government statements give some comfort it will not consider further legislative assistance for this development, but many remain nervous.
Against management plan and planning scheme requirements, this cable car is deemed a fail by experts and the council. Its only real hope is special legislation or Major Projects assessment that would strip away these requirements and rewrite their own, just like the infamous and ultimately fruitless Pulp Mill Assessment Act of 2007.
Only an unequivocal commitment from Premier Peter Gutwein to respect the planning decision and rule out parliamentary intervention will truly satisfy the many thousands who made the effort to engage in the proper assessment process.
Residents, experts, Aboriginal groups and others who love and appreciate kunanyi have condemned this cable car and want an end to its farce. Only then can we collectively move on as a community and secure genuinely viable, socially acceptable and compliant solutions to the pressures that come with tourists’ infatuation with kunanyi.
Vica Bayley is spokesperson for Residents Opposed to the Cable Car. He is a former Wilderness Society campaign manager.
Residents vow to keep fighting cable car
A South Hobart resident who would have been affected by the Mount Wellington Cable Car said he and others against the proposal will keep fighting against it, should the idea continue to be considered.
Karl Rollings said he and others were concerned about a number of issues if the project had progressed, including the aesthetic, odour and the potential of sewage spills.
On Tuesday the Hobart council voted to accept a recommendation to refuse the development application after independent planners released a report providing 21 reasons why it should be rejected.
He said he was relieved by the council’s decision.
“We’re pleased their planners recognised the many ways the proposal failed to meet the planning regulations,” Mr Rollings said.
“We don’t yet assume it is over.”
Mr Rollings said there were a number of reasons why he would have been affected.
“It would have created a noise disturbance over a very large area,” he said.
“Our calculations showed it would have been well above the background noise for 1km in all directions.”
“That would have impacted on people quietly enjoy the park in the base station and that area is valued for quiet recreation.”
Mr Rollings said he and others in the area depend on water from the Guy Fawkes Rivulet for domestic use, including drinking supply.
“We as residents were extremely concerned about the potential odour from the sewerage management system,” Mr Rollings said.
“Their own engineers report indicated the risk of odour was medium and the risk of sewage spills impacting nearby watercourses was high.”
“What they didn’t seem to realise is we use the Guy Fawkes Rivulet water.”
The Mount Wellington Cableway Company has said it’s consulting with planners and lawyers before it will make a decision on whether to appeal.
Mr Rollings said he and others would prefer if they upheld the council’s verdict.
“We would like it to be over, but we recognise the opponent may appeal this decision, as is their right,” he said.
“It could be over now if the proponent decides to accept the council’s decision and not appeal, we feel that’s what they should do.”
“We would like to think that a landscape so iconic in Hobart such as Mount Wellington and the organ pipes is protected for future generations.”
“We will just have to keep fighting to preserve Hobart’s beautiful mountain into the future.
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