Stand Up For Our Mountain

The Council rejected the cable car application


27/7/2021 In a welcome relief for the Mountain and the community of people defending her from the mass tourism that comes with a cable car, the Hobart City Council accepted the expert planner’s recommendation to reject approval of the cable car on 21 separate grounds of non-compliance. 9 votes to 3 the Council rejected the cable car DA.

Congratulations and thank you to anyone who made a representation, attended an event, spread the word or otherwise stood up for kunanyi. 72% of a record 16,500 representations opposed the cable car.

 

The fight goes on


HCC Rejects Cable Car DA 27/7/2021 : Residents Opposed to the Cable Car made a comprehensive representation against the cable car to the Hobart City Council (HCC) as part of their review of MWCC’s DA.  Download our representation here.

At the Council meeting, we made a deputation and appeared first in a line up of 16 deputations heard by the meeting. You can view the proceedings of the Hobart City Council meeting here.

You can still view the full DA, the Council’s expert Planner’s Report and associated expert consultant reports in the council agenda documents here.

TASCAT:

Following a comprehensive rejection of their cable car development application on 21 grounds of planning and management non-compliance, the Mount Wellington Cableway Company appealed to the Resource Management and Planning Appeal Tribunal (RMPAT) now known as Tasmanian  Civil and Administrative Tribunal (TASCAT). Residents Opposed to the Cable Car joined with the HCC along with other groups to defend kunanyi.

On 03/11/22 TASCAT ruled to uphold the City of Hobart’s decision to reject MWCC’s unwanted & inappropriate cable car proposal for kunanyi / Mt Wellington.

2023 Nepotism is alive and well :

Premier Jeremy Rockliff has opened the  2023 Parliamentary year pledging in his “State of the State” speech to bypass proper process, sideline the decision of the independent planning adjudicator and find some special new ‘pathway’ to approve the kunanyi cable car.

Despite pledging to govern with ‘heart’, the Premier’s desire to approve the cable car, against the science, planning advice and clear opposition of Hobartians and the Aboriginal Community signals his priorities ignore transparency, proper process and the protection of what makes the state special.

To make matters worse, his ‘Principal Adviser’ on tourism since 2019 (possibly the person responsible for giving advice on the ‘pathway’ to approval) has recently left his office and been appointed to Chair of the Mount Wellington Cableway Company.

Nepotism and farce is alive and well in Premier Rockliff’s Tasmania, as articulated in our joint release with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre – see here.

We don’t yet know how Premier Rockliff proposes to sideline proper process and push through a cable car approval, but this is a perversity that we need to head off. This may not be over yet!

Help our defence of kunanyi here

Assault on an iconic backdrop that makes Hobart special


Privatising public reserves to bring mass-tourism to the mountain is an assault on the values, amenity & ownership of an iconic backdrop to Hobart that makes our city special.

The cable car cuts directly across the Organ Pipes & involves three giant towers, a new 2.5km road, forest clearing around a large base station & 3554 m2 of commercial floorspace in an imposing new building at the summit.

Impacts include:

  • Tens of thousands of new cars, busses & trucks in residential streets of South Hobart & the Southern Outlet intersection
  • Light & noise pollution including trucks servicing the development day & night
  • Despoiling an ancient landscape & Aboriginal heritage values
  • Destruction of threatened forest communities & loss of high-quality nesting trees of the swift parrot & masked owl
  • Loss of public, reserved land & the access, ownership and amenity that people love

The cable car development contravenes both the Hobart Planning Scheme & the Wellington Park Management Plan and has never released a business plan to demonstrate it won’t require public subsidies.

Say NO to a cable car on kunanyi

Why?