The Interim Planning Scheme was both flawed and incomplete and this must be a concern to all citizens of the city.
The community should not sit back and allow Launceston City Council to devalue:
- Our cityscape
- Our heritage buildings
- Our streetscapes
- Our cultural landscape
- Our stories and placedness
"Local Government has a responsibility pursuant to the Act to preserve heritage and this includes keeping their planning schemes up to date by reviewing them every 5 years, including their heritage lists as a matter of course. It is regrettable that Local Government, including Launceston, the largest and wealthiest municipality, has not delivered on these responsibilities. By having an up to date list of heritage places, a greater level of certainty exists.
Unashamedly repeating what we wrote 3 months ago, there are a very great number of issues, errors, inconsistencies, omissions and inadequacies with the Interim Planning Scheme, not to mention that many aspects from the previous scheme were not incorporated into the interim scheme, and resulting in an extremely deficient and inadequate document, not even representing a 'status quo' situation on many fundamental aspects of planning that have been in place for the previous and even earlier planning schemes stemming back 20 or more years."
And limiting these comments now to just the heritage provisions of the Interim Scheme, it remains of great concern to us when the Interim Scheme was unveiled at the end of 2012, that:
- the list of heritage places scheduled had not been updated since at least 1996 (the State Government and Launceston City Council had shared the considerable expense of engaging an interstate heritage expert to update this list in around 2002. This study identified a great number of additional places, but still nothing has been added as promised);
- the list of Significant Trees had not been updated since 1985, and this list of important and significant trees, has now been deleted altogether;
- the list of heritage precincts that had existed in the previous and even earlier schemes has been deleted and some sort of alternative interim protection has been given to all individual properties within the pre-existing precincts, even those that have no heritage value in their own right. Aspects of precincts that are located within roadways and nature strips etc., such as trees, landscaping, stone gutters and stone retaining walls etc., and previously protected, are currently not protected at all.
New provisions of the state-wide model planning scheme that called for protection of archaeological sites are blank pages in the interim scheme -
- Launceston's burial grounds, some located on converted recreational grounds, both private and publically owned, and on private residential land, are not protected at all;
- Archaeology in Launceston is unprotected by the planning scheme, and in particular where there are sites that are highly regarded as potentially yielding very important archaeological 'finds' as they have already been identified as having had buildings from the 1826 and 1835 surveys of Launceston, but are disregarded.
The above content has to be of concern as it is an embarrassment compared to that contained in the Hobart Council’s Interim Planning Scheme.
It is time to now speak to the candidates particularly those Councillors who continue to undermine the city’s core strength and devalue our environment.
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The permit issued previously for a development to extend the height of the City Block building in St John Street again heralded in the weekend press, has lapsed, HAS EXPIRED.
ReplyDeleteThe story put out by Ms Austin (neglecting to admit that she is a candidate in the election for Aldermen) is nothing more than a shallow attempt at free publicity that seeks to avoid the rules set down by the State Electoral Office.
Ms Austin will need to make a completely FRESH APPLICATION and go through the whole process again, no doubt bemoaning unfair play all of the way.
It is interesting to note that Ms Austin does not own this building, and that others who do have a controlling say, are not in agreement that she be allowed to build on top of her Stratum Office level that she does own. She doesn't have the right to capitalise on this air space, nor does she have the right to build in front of the building within the setback area that was a condition of the construction of the original building when built for the Building Society/owner.
It is unclear as to how many levels she will be proposing to add as the "rooftop bar" is an extra storey too.
Launceston needs to make a point of difference to other places and not be a follower of modern city trends elsewhere.
Launceston's key point is Heritage Buildings, and the setting for the city's buildings is crucial to maintaining this fragile low-level city.
The Myer Building (Cox Bros c1959) was a MISTAKE, and every town planning study and eminent visitor to Launceston in recent years reminds the City Council that it ought never to have been allowed in that central location. The present tenant, Myer, has made it known would happily vacate the upper half dozen levels if only the neighbouring developer of the vacant carpark site would construct 2 levels for them over the expanded area. The eventual demolition of that ugly building would be a positive for the Launceston townscape.
The Telstra Building was built in two stages, and when it was doubled in height in the 1970's, it was to save the demolition of the adjacent historic Johnstone & Wilmot Building, which the Commonwealth Government had previously acquired and subsequently passed to ownership of the Launceston City Council. A lost opportunity during the 1990's when what was actually the Telephone Exchange became functionally redundant and virtually vacant, was to remove the ugly upper half of the building. IT is important to realise that this is a Commonwealth building and is exempt from Local Planning Scheme rules.
Doubtless there will be much more said and written about any proposal to extend the height of the so-called City Block Building, including pro-development sentiments and stopping our children leaving for interstate and overseas work...... but the basic issues remain.
It is not as if we don't have plenty of scope for accommodating offices and other uses around the city centre, given the undeveloped carpark spaces and empty buildings at present, right down to ground level.
Lionel Morrell
President, Heritage Protection Society (Tasmania) Inc.