Orford development: Controversial 90-lot subdivision at Rheban Rd is back on the cards

A proposal for a 90-lot subdivision on Tasmania’s East Coast spearheaded by two Victorian developers has been revised and revived, four years after the planning commission first torpedoed it.

Orford, Tasmania. Picture: File

A proposal for a 90-lot subdivision on Tasmania’s East Coast spearheaded by two Victorian developers has been revised and revived, four years after the planning commission first torpedoed it.

The Tasmanian Planning Commission is currently considering an application by Rheban Rd Pty Ltd, owned by Mornington Peninsula firms Tempo Group and Gemson Constructions, for a 10.2ha, 90-lot residential subdivision at 155 Rheban Rd, Orford, near Shelly Beach.

The application would involve rezoning the mostly undeveloped, cleared block used for horse grazing from future urban to general residential.

Lots of between 475 sqm and 1217 sqm would be developed across six stages, according to plans lodged with the planning commission.

An existing dam and watercourse on the site “will remain and be located centrally within the public open space proposed in the subdivision,” a planning report in support of the proposal said.

However, this was contradicted by engineering advice from Aldanmark Consulting Engineers, who said the dam would be “drained, lined … filled and compacted”.

Site plan for proposed 90-lot residential subdivision at 155 Rheban Rd, Orford. Picture: Aldanmark Consulting Engineers

The new proposal comes six years after the developers’ first attempt at Rheban Rd was lodged with council and four years since it was rejected by the planning commission.

According to planning documents, while Glamorgan-Spring Bay Council supported the first, larger proposal, the planning commission rejected it for reasons including a “lack of demonstrated demand, concerns that the proposal would result in an oversupply of land,” and that it was inconsistent with the Southern Tasmania Regional Land Use Strategy (STRLUS).

Tempo Group managing director Benjamin Comelli. Picture: LinkedIn

In 2020, Rheban Rd Pty Ltd commissioned a report by SGS Economics to argue that the STRLUS had underestimated Orford’s future growth and that, were it to be followed to the letter, there would only be a maximum of 71 dwellings constructed between 2010–35, whereas 298 would be needed.

“Residential demand in Orford is well beyond what was anticipated in STRLUS and freeing up more land within the suburb boundary prevents growth spilling over into productive agricultural land, further along the coast and in natural living areas around Orford,’ the SGS report concluded.

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Amendments to council’s Triabunna/Orford Structure Plan 2014 and the STRLUS were subsequently made, which the developers argue heightens the rationale for their project.

Of the 27 representations made during the proposed subdivision’s exhibition period, “the majority oppose the development, in art or completely,” a council report tabled at council’s ordinary meeting on September 26 this year noted.

Concerns raised be representers included the lack of regard to recent lot creation (Holkham Court, Solis), small lot sizes, overdevelopment, inadequate infrastructure, the lack of a stormwater management plan to reassure existing residents of Shelly Beach there will be no adverse impacts, and that the new plan was similar to that which was previously rejected.

However, according to the council report, “many of the reasons that generated the 2019 refusal by the commission are no longer relevant,” owing to the subsequent amendments to the STRLUS and Triabunna/Orford Structure Plan 2014.

The planning commission is yet to set a hearing date to consider the proposal.