Hobart City councillors have refused a proposed social housing development targeted at homeless women.
The five-storey building on Argyle Street in North Hobart was designed to accommodate 38 new studio apartments spread across four levels, with shared indoor and outdoor spaces and a vegetable garden.
The $16.7 million development came about as part of a joint effort between St Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Tasmania and Amelie Housing and would have sat above the current Vinnies charity store.
“212 Argyle Street will create a community of support with social benefit for residents who are anticipated to be initially women over 55,” the application read.
“SVdP Tasmania identified the potential for this Argyle St site to respond to the growing call for social and affordable housing, complementing its existing Bethlehem House concept which was first established over 50 years ago.”
But at a planning meeting on Wednesday night, attended by many worried neighbours, councillors voted against the project five to four due to concerns about a lack of parking and the height of the proposal.
Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds voted in support of the project and said the council should prepare for similar developments in the area in the future.
“This is such an important development for housing and homelessness, we have a housing crisis,” she said.
“This sends exactly the wrong message to developers, to housing funders, to the social sector, to people who are experiencing homelessness that we are basically going to say no to this because of a few quite limited concerns.”
“In this location, where we’re looking to develop more growth in Hobart, four, five, six storeys is exactly the kind of projects we will be seeing in this part of Hobart in the coming years.”
Councillor Ben Lohberger said he felt like he couldn’t vote against the build, but did not want to vote for it.
“I really don’t want to vote against this, I really don’t. But there are some significant issues with quite a range of items,” he said.
Councillor John Kelly said while he was “all for development”, neighbours who have lived in the area for over 30 years deserved more consultation from the developer.
“They’re not saying ‘don’t go ahead with this’, they fully support it … they’re saying ‘reduce the height’ by the two levels, they’re coming up with alternative solutions,” he said.
“I think in the spirit of what they want and the spirit of what we need with social housing, I think really we can do much, much better than this.”
Council staff had previously recommend the application be approved.
Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds, Deputy Lord Mayor Dr Zelinda Sherlock, Councillor Bill Harvey and Councillor Gemma Kitsos voted in support of the development.
Alderman Marti Zucco, Councillor John Kelly, Councillor Louise Elliot, Alderman Louise Bloomfield and Councillor Ben Lohberger voted against the development.
Councillor Ryan Posselt excluded himself from the meeting due to a conflict of interest. Councillor Will Coats and Councillor Mike Dutta were not present.
