The City of Hobart has avoided approving or even discussing an application to transform a Salamanca site into new high-end apartments.
At a five-minute long meeting on Wednesday night, councillors on the planning committee voted to defer the proposal due to a lack of attendance.
Plans submitted to the council involve refurbishing the building’s first floor, which already contains housing and converting the second and third floors into apartments.
A penthouse would also be added on top of the building.
During the meeting, Councillor Ben Lohberger cited a conflict of interest issue with an agenda item, prompting Chair Councillor Mike Dutta to suggest deferring the item due to a lack of quorum.
“The interesting thing is … when you leave we won’t have a quorum,” he said.
“Once we lose the quorum we won’t be able to continue.”
A quorum for a council committee meeting means that more than half of the councillors who are part of the committee need to be present for the meeting to be valid.
Just six councillors showed up to the meeting, half of the twelve listed as being committee members on the meeting agenda.
The application and one other will now be pushed back to a later council planning meeting or handled by council staff using emergency planning powers.
