HOUSING STRESS IN LAUNCESTON

This is not really a new idea and as good as it is, and as timely as it now is, when put to Council and Aldermen/aCouncillors in the past every excuse in Christendom has been trotted out as to why not – given that benefits of the status quo and hand sitting.

OH BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE ... It is out there that for this or that reason, those who might CHANGEagents have paid but LIPservice to an opportunity to help and ultimately went into hiding. Here it is the abandoned heritage LGH Nurses Home just above the Charles Hotel.

CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO ENLARGE

In August 2022 Rosemary Armitage MLC asked a question in the house and was essentially fobbed off – Click here to read the question and the response. In a nut shell the response is a exemplar of bureaucratic BOVINEdust pure and simple. Speculatively, any developer 'in the know' would and could see this as a golden opportunity so long as they come in quietly and help the government out of its fiscal dilemma.

There is quite a bit to be gleaned from the Premier’s response to Rosemary Armitage. 

• Firstly, it seems quite clear that the ‘Real Estate’ has been deemed to be let’s say ‘surplus to requirement’; and 
• Secondly, given the status quo ‘Housing Tasmania’ also seems to deem that these building are too hard to deal with; and 
• Thirdly, ‘the government’ sees the asset as just so much money it can garner by selling the asset to whoever for whatever. 

However, if this cluster of buildings were to be reimagined as ‘housing’, and seriously so, and its detractions considered as manageable it would/should be understandable as an opportunity to make contribution to address Launceston’s/Tasmania’s ‘housing crisis’. 

It might well be that Housing Tasmania does not see itself as having the ‘resources’ – human and/or other (intellectual?) – to be ‘a developer’. Nonetheless, at same time the Govt. can see that ‘a private developer’ might well 'be able' – and willing to pay something, albeit not a lot, for the opportunity. 

It’d be unkind to say that such a determination was/is an exemplar of ‘lazy bureaucracy’ at work. However, if it quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and looks a lot like a duck there is a dammed good chance that it is actually a duck! 

  

Looking around we can see developers stealing opportunities from ‘the community’ on the assumption that ‘the community’ lacks the wherewithal to deliver positive/appropriate outcomes. On what evidence is that assumption made?

What might be possible if that perception was seriously challenged? It is something that needs to be tested. Moreover, it is a concept that local governance operatives need to get behind rather than regard it as threat to their credibility.

There seems that there would be enough support for further exploration and investigation, so the question begging an answer seems to be what next? However, bureaucratic status quoism within Launceston's Town Hall planning department, sorry, 'approvals and disapprovals office' is very likely to put every stone in the road it can lay its hands on to save its sullied credibility.