The Hobart waterfront is surely the jewel in our capital city's crown, our harbour should define us, should be internationally recognised and should be championed at all costs. Alas...
Blame for the total wretchedness that is the Hobart waterfront presently needs to be equally shared by the state government, City Council and ratepayers who through sheer apathy have allowed this unmitigated disaster to transpire.
We are all accountable for giving the state government and council a license to trash our city's significant landmark. They have shown repeatedly they care not one iota for sustaining the colonial heritage of our waterfront cityscape by approving building developments that are ugly, patently out of character and if allowed to go unchecked will surely result in the waterfront being nationally and internationally regarded as an eyesore. With reckless abandon, our once beautiful waterfront is fast setting a new international standard as a warning to architects and city planners of what can happen when people no longer care.
Shame on you aldermen to allow this travesty to unravel. If any further evidence was needed that the current crop are a pack of bloated self interested clowns then what is happening on the Hobart waterfront is surely it. Why is it not a guiding principle of all waterfront developments before council that they should adhere to and enhance the history of the area?
To be anything less is a total dereliction of civic responsibility and that is what we have, gloriously illustrated by the ghastly Marine Board building, decrepit Grand Chancellor Hotel, woeful Federation Concert Hall, turgid wheat silos, abominable 1 Collins Street and dreadful apartment complexes currently under construction.
Special mention must be made of the Zero Davey development with aldermen Valentine, Freeman, Archer, Hayes, Jones, Sexton, Briscoe, and Haigh standing guilty as charged for supporting this most recent blight on the landscape. It is the above names that ratepayers need to bear in mind when re-election comes around, the cultural abuses they have perpetrated upon the Hobart waterfront should not be allowed to continue unchecked.
These festering grievances have come to a head courtesy of recent comments by premier Lennon who has suggested planning approval be removed from the council and taken over by the state government. Lennon's comments have predictably led to an outcry from Hobart City Council aldermen citing the government's approval of the aforementioned Marine Board building and the Grand Chancellor monstrosities as evidence the process would not improve in government hands. Amusingly, in their outrage, the HCC has admitted culpability. While not disagreeing their planning approvals have created aesthetic disasters, they suggest bigger and brighter development follies would be allowed to prosper under state government assent.
How sad it is that we see the state government and local council slanging it out in the media with neither parties wanting to take responsibility for misdeeds past and present. The current impasse needs to register with voters for there to be any change in the situation. We have the power to demand accountability from those making such decisions to ensure elected members receive a mandate to maintain the preservation of our cultural heritage rather than corrupt it through the lure of the quick buck and all the nastiness that entails.
Ratepayers and taxpayers be warned, this is not an acceptable allocation of funds. The current destruction of the waterfront should be enough cause to wield a very big broom through the Hobart City Council to once and for all put paid to the stale, blinkered and mediocre decision making that we are all paying for. For too long our public spaces have been held to ransom by these incompetents.
Not that things would be better in state government hands. The Lennon Labor government has shown a repeated preparedness to do as it pleases irrespective of public opinion on any given matter. A ridiculous suggestion it may be but I would not rule out an Oceanport style development in the future with the state Libs supporting such a scheme [but in their trademark absence of political style and tact, maintaining they thought of it first!]
To an outsider, one glance at the Hobart waterfront would be enough to reduce you to tears or laughter [depending on your perspective] visitors from other more well heeled climes should quite rightly mock the paucity of anything remotely cultural or significant in this precinct and direct their collective ire at our town planners, whose total absence of vision and cultural sensitivity is reflected in the garish facades that dominant the waterfront. The overall effect - an obscene practical joke that has got well and truly out of hand.
The situation is indeed dire, a cultural precinct potentially the envy of the world is now all but lost courtesy of the architecturally bankrupt vision of a chosen few. We need to shake off the shackles of apathy and begin taking a greater interest in development proposals before council and government, to install elected members who share a commitment to preserving the historical significance of our public spaces and to ensure that our waterfront transcends the shroud of mediocrity that has currently enveloped it.
Warren Perso is an ascerbic commentator with a forensic interest in politics, social and cultural issues. He lives in Hobart
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Saturday, May 5, 2004