| Episode: | E119 |
| Show Title: | Plan Build Tasmania Portal Improving Liveability for the Heart of Glenorchy Launches |
| Cast: | Aaron Horne, Patrick Berry & John McGregor |
| Show Length: | 22 minutes 52 seconds |
This week the team discuss the CityScape Civic Heart Masterplan which sets out a long-term vision for the center of Glenorchy.
This project is part of Future Glenorchy and the Economic Recovery Program, aimed at growing Glenorchy and improving liveability of the City. The vision is for a modern, efficient, fully accessible precinct that will house Council Chambers, the Library, commercial tenancies, and other government services.
Transcript:
Aaron Horne
Even though the idea of adding signing I’ll be into Mona felt like it moved the final curtain, you know, another kilometer down the road. And then that ad, that process in Mona seemed to skyrocket once everyone was like, Oh, Moon is actually a bloody nice suburb. Well, and then if you go from Iowa. Mona. Yeah, that’s a nice suburb.
Aaron Horne
But have you been to the heart of Glenorchy? Yeah, that’s a bloody nice suburb going on.
Patrick Berry
With young wine. You know, you’re living in the family home.
Aaron Horne
All right, guys, welcome back to the property part, your weekly engagement into real estate here in the Hobart marketplace. I’m your host, Aaron Horne, and it gives me great pleasure to be back at the desk with my two real estate agent friends, John MacGregor and Patrick Berry. Welcome back, team.
Patrick Berry
Hey, it’s good to be back. It literally feels like we never left this place. Like it’s been so fast and so that is nice.
Aaron Horne
So I had this big plan where we were going to bank a few episodes prior to Easter, and, yeah, John did not just show up as a cool hip builder.
Patrick Berry
Joe, I am still renovate, right?
John McGregor
I spent 12 months. I could have done this every week. It makes its always good.
Aaron Horne
I thought we could do like a little site swap and stuff like that, but I was like, No, because nobody cares. Look, we’ve got extra stuff to talk about, so I’m just going to jump into, into that stuff, but we’re.
John McGregor
Just going to jump into the heart. Well, this is Vivica.
Aaron Horne
Oh, damn. Yeah. Now that. Now who’s the king of Segways? I didn’t have the camera on. Yes, I didn’t Yeah.
John McGregor
This is just. Just my smooth dulcet tones.
Aaron Horne
No, look at just a follow up from last week’s episode, which actually only happened about 15 minutes ago. Yeah, we we left the plan boards discussion how these two boys were blowing out so much then. And enjoying themselves with their like, let’s just make this a company policy that you’ve got to add it to every list.
Patrick Berry
I’m still on it. Oh, yeah. So it’s been a whole week that you still on the side.
John McGregor
It’s been really it’s been incredibly successful across the table.
Aaron Horne
No, look, it was a cool thing to bring to the table. And yeah, as we said, we were going to look into getting someone on. It’s only been 50 minutes since since we said that we’re.
Patrick Berry
Still working on it.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, but, but trust us, we’re on it. Yeah, I know you had a great Segway, John. You can fire it off at us one more time.
John McGregor
Yeah. So we’re going to talk about that. What kind of dude.
Aaron Horne
Is going straight to the heart?
John McGregor
We’re going straight to the heart.
Aaron Horne
Of.
John McGregor
God.
Patrick Berry
Yeah.
Aaron Horne
All right, tell us a bit more about the civic heart. What?
John McGregor
This is the Cannock City shaped sub precinct master plan.
Patrick Berry
So Jason, civic heart sounded easy to say.
John McGregor
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Now, this is a something that’s been in the works for many, many years, and I think it’s a really exciting release because it goes to show that a lot of those that are in council at the moment are actually looking at Glenorchy, not for just a, you know, it’s 12 months, five years, but it’s really the next.
John McGregor
What does the next 30 years have gone to? What could it look like? So this masterplan is to transform where the council building is now and the immediate surrounds of that city block into something just completely different, completely re reinvigorating that space. And it’s just something, you know, why not even one of these now. So that would transform the library, transform the council, would it bring in new services, shops, you name it.
John McGregor
So then into one beautiful integrated hub that would actually be really enticing for people to use because at the moment, obviously, you know, it is a sign of its time and I really want to move that. I want to, you know, I think a lot of large part of it, too, they can rearrange in how people see the council as well.
John McGregor
At the moment, it’s just this big prominence building right in the showcase in St George of how could that be, you know, design differently. So it becomes more accessible, it doesn’t need to be taken, it doesn’t need to take up as much foot space, you know. So it was footprint. Could the library be done differently? So over the last.
John McGregor
Sorry to keep going but you know, for a while now they’ve been having think tanks with different special interest groups, obviously businesses and individuals and those involved in around the council and then now here they’ve released their first draft of what it could actually potentially look like.
Aaron Horne
Yeah. And it is impressive. Mighty impressive, I guess being someone that’s grown up in the city of Glenorchy for well, like you said in your little amble there, 30 years time, like what will Glenorchy look like? We’ve had 30 years living in Glenorchy, like all three of us. Have been. Yeah. Members of the Glenorchy City for all this time.
Aaron Horne
So we’ve seen, you know, kind of the skate park go in just over near where the offices were and then that come and go and then that turned into the health hub. And then recently the st the what it’s called the main road has been like redeveloped. It took maybe a year and a half, but.
Patrick Berry
Obviously they’re planning for 30 years because the main road took them that long they know that this isn’t a quick job.
John McGregor
Oh man.
Aaron Horne
But it’s amazing to say the place we’ve grown up. Yeah. Kind of develop and like we’re only discussing off mike before kind of bringing that flannel at curtain, which I know you talked about. Fun to look at. Yeah, yeah. Right. Well, this is.
John McGregor
Technically the MacGregor.
Aaron Horne
And yeah, yeah, we’ve heard that.
Patrick Berry
It tells us.
Aaron Horne
We could back a supercut of this is actually did you know I’m from Scotland.
Patrick Berry
Just don’t get any talking about the tug of war. Yeah.
Aaron Horne
No, this looks awesome. This is really cool. So it’s kind of. Yeah, updating it and bringing, as you’ve described, the heart of Glenorchy to a life and yet really changing that precinct and giving it. Yeah. A a major facelift.
John McGregor
Yeah. I think one of the things to that as at the first it gives a bit of a background of you know, how it evolved in terms of getting to this stage and as the, as this design is it they tried to, you know, piece together a series of guiding principles that would sort of try and unify a vision on what they’re trying to achieve.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, sure.
John McGregor
So I’ll read it through quickly. But first and foremost, supporting and generating strong economy, fostering a vibrant and activated place. So when I say activated a space that people actually use shop, you know, so in a multitude of ways encouraging safe movement and transport access. So that was the idea to ensure that, you know, it’s easy for, you know, modern, you know, bicycles and the busses and the to support obviously the larger goal, you know, around the Hobart, which is to connect everything.
Patrick Berry
Nine of us up as rail and you.
John McGregor
Know, you I suppose that’s the, the guiding principle is it. Yes, let’s, let’s bring that into the discussion because obviously in activated space is going to connect over into the highway and through into the rail. So that was obviously there embedding sustainability into the precinct, which should we be passionate about. But I think that’s again what would in their test best practice standards for sustainability will undergird the building form.
John McGregor
And let’s face it, it’s obviously trying to make it as is low impact I suppose, and self-sustaining as.
Aaron Horne
Looking at it. Was that like giant greenery on the roof? It still looks like today yeah.
John McGregor
I think so.
Aaron Horne
I’m all about.
John McGregor
That. So I think one of the ideas was, was that, you know, yeah, I think that was one of the ideas. It’s an activated space of actually on the rooftop. You’ve got a communal garden. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that was one of the ideas throwing around, championing accessibility. Actually, karaoke, I think is actually supposedly one of the best, um, councils for accessibility, disability, wheelchairs, etc. So that’s something you obviously want to ensure that that they retain are greening the civic heart.
John McGregor
So that’s where the, you know, that really comes into making actually a joyful place to be a part of, not rather just a concrete jungle celebrating the beauty in that instance. Then it was actually to the you can say they’ve got a, you know, a large space in front of the council, but it really gets used and when it is, it’s quite awkward.
John McGregor
I remember being part of a, the Nokia taskforce we used to put on those concepts.
Aaron Horne
Oh man, I remember that.
John McGregor
Um, and you know, they’re always really well received, but it’s still awkward, you know, environment. So, you know, it’d almost be design. You could have it almost a semi amphitheater, that kind of style. So actually it’s purpose built for entertaining and then designing a distinctive public realm. And again, that’s that element where with the public realm is like everyone can have a sense of ownership over it.
John McGregor
So you’re all, everyone’s welcome, everyone’s welcome to contribute, everyone’s welcome to use it. And they from that then you know, once those you know, ideas were set in place, that’s when, you know, the designs and concepts started to roll out that, you know, people could say now.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, I guess looking at some of these images here, it’s giving me a real kind of Federation Square vibe in, in Melbourne. Like I guess if you’re trying to envision what we’re describing is yeah, that community space in the Civic heart, a lot of this stuff is looking kind of like, yeah, let’s all and I guess the activated side of life is like, let’s all actually congregate in here.
Aaron Horne
Yeah. And yet use it as a, as a space that’s vibrant and, and happening. So yeah, I just to paint the picture in other people’s minds is yeah, it’s looking a lot like that. And I think the idea of having that in the city of monarchies is really cool. It’s kind of yeah, like you say, take away that concrete jungle and that kind of blocky sort of life and it’s just like, yeah, we’ve put the Lego blocks together and now we’ve thrown them away and now we’ve got this awesome new space that Yeah.
Aaron Horne
Here for the people.
John McGregor
It’s, it’s now they’ve got good visuals there you can access as well. It, it, it actually just gets excited if I could actually pull it off.
Aaron Horne
Oh yeah. Fathoms it like, even like I’m looking here now like a play space near the old church where the bus kind of used to be. I was like, sweet, that works for me. I can bring Jack and Henry along and that’ll.
Patrick Berry
Be 30 year old man.
Aaron Horne
But oh no, that can bring their kids. I’ll be the granddad. Yeah.
Patrick Berry
That’s this time is.
Aaron Horne
A good call. Good call.
John McGregor
And that was and what a because that church that obviously has a heritage element so they can touch that at all. So how can. But at the moment it’s just surrounded by some gates and we’re just certain that’s like I to be protected that doesn’t get used either. So it’s you know could that also be integrate into the space a lot better you know so um, that, that all came into the design concept.
John McGregor
Obviously they’ve now been able to release because they actually had to go through, I think they had to go through multiple consultancy firms because obviously you need professionals to build this, but they needed the right people that actually would get on board and actually listen and, and actually do what the vision that they had in mind rather than just, well, you know, get stuffed basically.
Aaron Horne
So is this something that you’ve been involved in some of the planning stuff that you’re very passionate about? Just like I feel like whether it was Christie before or who’s the current mayor of Glenorchy.
John McGregor
Oh, back just back.
Aaron Horne
Thomas. Thomas, yeah. Is this something you’ve you’ve spoken with them about? Like is it something you’ve um.
John McGregor
Well, they’ve, they’ve had obviously like I said, they’ve had interviews when they call special interest groups. All it is, is about different businesses and community groups, etc. So they can get, you know, a voice for from a multitude of different angles rather than having to ask 40,000 people what they think immediately. Yeah. Oh is it just be a nightmare.
John McGregor
So yeah, I’ve been involved with these, you know, those think tanks from the very first days, this, the, this contact come into play.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, sure.
John McGregor
So yeah, it’s been interesting. So I’ve obviously had my little bit, you know, my $0.02 to add at the time and then chatting with other people. Would you know, and then the, the diversity of views that there was in those rooms was amazing because I mean in the end I’ve got no, my background is what being a, you know, passionate Glenorchy resident and then also real estate agent.
Patrick Berry
Avid Scotsman, avid Scotsman.
John McGregor
Um, if you go to say my shirt.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.
John McGregor
I was so glad to add. And then the head, you know those from, you know, those architects there that just by chance or your head even those that are, you know, running the community groups you had you know, interest from uh, Metro and like all the businesses around the area.
Aaron Horne
Yes. So like key stakeholders from all around the space and yet you, you have been a key stakeholder in this. It’s just the way you’ve been discussing it. It’s like there’s definitely something like you’ve, you’ve got an inside track, but you’ve, you’ve been over this more than just looking over the define the file.
John McGregor
I think what what’s most exciting about that I want people to understand is just the people that behind it are so excited by it. And it’s not and it’s really hasn’t been an ego trip. They’ve really wanted to ideas like we weren’t going to work. It’d be amazing. How can we make that happen? Yeah. And that’s sort of been the driving force behind it, which has been that’s why I’ve been so excited to be a part of it because I’ve, I’ve been a part of the people who want to make it happen.
John McGregor
Like, these are good people. Yeah. Yeah. They want the best for them. And this will, this will be a lot of them will be gone far before this ever gets realized as well.
Aaron Horne
Yeah. So I guess like, yeah, my then jumping to the next side of things is like tickertape, the real estate side of, of the podcast going is kind of you do a major development like this. It’s going to encourage more people to want to come to the city of Glenorchy. So then you’d assume that that would be a really good for homes in the area and the growing kind of market is that.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, yeah. Is that something that you would say like I guess they even in the idea of adding signage I’ll be into Mona felt like it moved the final curtain, you know, another kilometer down the road and then that ad lot prices in Mona seem to skyrocket once everyone was like, oh, moon is actually a bloody nice suburb.
Aaron Horne
Well, and then if you go from our Mona, yeah, that’s a nice suburb. But have you been to the heart of Glenorchy? Yeah, that’s a bloody nice suburb.
John McGregor
And that was the thing when I was you know, I was the stakeholder for from the real estate perspective was that there was no objection to this. Yeah, it was zero. Like there is no all that is, is net benefit.
Aaron Horne
Making the city better. Yeah. Can’t negatively affect not real estate, not in.
John McGregor
Any way, shape or form. Like there those better services, better transport, better entertainment, you know, better restaurants, everything like stop. You can’t object to that.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, yeah. Official.
John McGregor
So it’s sort of, you know, the hard discussion will be obviously some people are going to hide it. Some people can love it. A lot of people be indifferent. And also to the challenge between the stakeholders was all the representing different bodies like, well, you know, the council still got to be looked after, the lobby still got to be looked after that all the services have got to be looked after that.
John McGregor
And how can that oh, how can oh they can you know. Oh yeah. Well, just call it conflicting. Views in some sense. Yeah. Who need the hey I need this on it is how can I bring this? How can I bring all those together that everyone can rally behind? And they’re really starting to get really close to that, which is what this first draft obviously is now ready for public view and commentary.
John McGregor
I think by the time this will get released, though, I look, I think the the scope for feedback quite close. But.
Aaron Horne
Um, yeah, I think unfortunately we probably should have covered on this a little bit earlier and we would have been able to Yeah. Just let people know that it was still up for discussion and you could have you say, but unfortunately I think that ended maybe two weeks ago. Sorry guys with.
John McGregor
That. I mean, but look at it anyway. So I think the if, you know, hopefully they can really, you know, get this vision off the ground because I think the the net pipeline it set for, you know, economic future investments is like 1.9 billion or something. That I said in the in the intro. So it’s not just this, but the so much more.
John McGregor
So there’s huge, you know, huge plans and hopes for what could be invested.
Aaron Horne
It’s funny, I’m just looking at another bit here, which I wouldn’t have even flagged previously. But on the episode that we spoke about the medium density building of the the house is being on top of buildings along the main corridor. I’m halfway through. It kind of brought up the idea of like, oh, what about parking? Like I hadn’t thought about this, thought about in this document.
Aaron Horne
Oh yeah, yeah. They’re talking about how there’s all this underground parking that they’re planning on putting in place. So that would definitely resolve the issue that I had with that episode. So thank you.
John McGregor
That was one of the first things that you discovered is that there’s so much open just car space at the moment, and that’s a lot of valuable real estate that you can build on top of. Yeah. So that was in some parts just, well, let’s just get something on there that we can use as opposed to just taking up car spaces.
John McGregor
However. Yes, that one with those being displaced, will they need a spot for them? So that was obviously a big challenge that they’ve had to overcome as well.
Aaron Horne
I’m getting further into it. Sorry I didn’t listen to what you said because I was scrolling through the area the document here. I was trying to find the next talking point, but I found. Did you ever go to the highline in New York City? Yeah, yeah. I’ve just found that here. They’re kind of using that as an example to say, you know, I like this.
Patrick Berry
One is a great use of space.
Aaron Horne
Inside.
Patrick Berry
An old abandoned train line for people that don’t know that has been transformed into a public open garden area. Oh, really? So it’s it’s a big place to try and track. That was, you know.
Aaron Horne
So an elevated train up above kind of, you know, just you see Spider-Man swinging through it in the city. Yeah.
Patrick Berry
So it used to be just this nothingness and then they’ve turned in this big urban garden and it’s got like basketball courts and meeting places where you can eat and like just chill. And I’m like, there’s almost like a second Central Park in a way.
Aaron Horne
Yeah. That just spans across this long. And you can go from, like, Chelsea all the way up to the top of the island. It’s really, really cool. So, yeah, looking through these examples here, it’s like, well, even you were talking before the new uni. I know I’m a bit part. You were saying how you and Abby will perform all three.
Patrick Berry
Yeah, just love the new uni accommodation in the center of the city and how they have made the big like accommodation area on the ground floor connected to the city. And there’s a little parkland area in there that you can sit and relax and even though obviously for the purpose of uni students, it’s open to the public anyway going.
John McGregor
Oh yeah, yeah, because they’ve got a couple of basketball.
Patrick Berry
Courts. Yeah, exactly.
John McGregor
They do their all time.
Patrick Berry
Yeah. It’s just such a cool space in the center of the city where you can sort of escape the city. And I guess this is what this feels like to a degree.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, it’s that not using what we’ve got in the nature of the area to kind of I guess like there’s a little arterial kind of passageways that aren’t, you know, like, oh, this is like a corridor that you have to go down like, oh no, you can use this space and go through the buildings and come through but it’s not kind of invasive and yeah.
Patrick Berry
And then like it’s just such a clever use of space here. Like they’re not actually removing the old council chambers, they’re just repurposing it with a more modern look. And like they’ve done that to a degree with the donated time and center, the recently redone or my estate arena or whatever it’s called. Now, like you look at that from the outside and it looks like these brand new state of the art like complex.
Aaron Horne
Well, I’ve said, I’ve said numerous times, like everyone was going in and saying like, Oh, they’ve done such a good job, it’s so cool. And then I’m like, I’m like, it’s Chinese that much like.
Patrick Berry
I put a design by the front of it by a big entrance while I.
Aaron Horne
Can’t be that different. And then you roll into there and it’s like, Wow, this is really cool. They have like they’ve kind of brought it into the 21st century so. So bringing Glenorchy into the 21st century.
Patrick Berry
Cycle when you can take old original spaces and repurpose them better. Absolutely. Than a fresh look. Yes, I that saves on your development costs and the project saves and wastage like rather than demolishing a full building. If you can repurpose part of that building like this is so much good to come out of what they’ve done here and how they’ve sort of put this plan together.
Patrick Berry
It’s really clever.
John McGregor
Oh it’s 100% the end the consultants were fantastic and the bin bringing all those, you know different different views into this is unbelievable.
Patrick Berry
And I get references here like the current square meter, right of like square meters of how much building is there currently versus what it’ll be when we’re finished. And just to know that you can create that much additional space in the same area. Oh yeah. As well as create these public spaces where people like there’s a basketball court in the middle of this thing according to the plan.
Patrick Berry
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it’s just such a better use of the space by the look of it, because.
John McGregor
An idea behind that was to have this, you know, little community center where if you are bringing your kids into the center hub of it, you can feel safe and connected without having to worry, you know, so and you know, the idea too is very simply in the council buildings. Why do they have to be what has to be work on the bottom floor?
John McGregor
Well, if everyone was united in ministry of organization, so raise it up a level and boom, you’ve got an entire floor that the public can access again.
Aaron Horne
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
John McGregor
It’s, you know, there’s there’s so many little.
Patrick Berry
Smart talking to it. Like we’re talking five stories here on some of the building block. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s big for going on inside.
Aaron Horne
And I feel that the building of our stories in Tasmania, you know, they you get the little high, everyone gets panicked.
Patrick Berry
We’ve been saying for ages that Glenorchy and Claremont, Oklahoma, Glenorchy and Belgrave and these outer suburbs, they do allow for you to go higher buildings. Yep. And like start with this project, get a five storey building in the center of the city. Then you can then leverage two other opportunities from there.
John McGregor
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Aaron Horne
Very cool. Yeah. Look, I’m excited about it. Yeah. And talking from the real estate side of things, like obviously just speculating as the guy on the other side of the desk but yeah, it can not be bad for prices in the city. Obviously, that’s something that they’ve discussed with you, John, and I’m sure other agents and people. But yeah, any any additions to the city of Glenorchy or any area I can’t say is a bad thing for us.
John McGregor
It was just net positive all the way.
Aaron Horne
Around home owners. England Hockey Yeah. Have a look at this. And if you support it, get behind it. And obviously we get we missed the deadline for discussing our pets has found something new that he hadn’t read about previously. What have you been doing?
Patrick Berry
Research very well for this episode. Get an example here of a church in Santa Barbara that’s been turned into a skate park inside of.
Aaron Horne
Why.
Patrick Berry
It looks we go.
Aaron Horne
Oh, that’s just straight out of our tiny little.
Patrick Berry
Hole.
Aaron Horne
That is so.
Patrick Berry
Good. It’s a little church down there to an internal skatepark.
Aaron Horne
Yeah, I’m on board for me. Up. All right. Skate park, fairly.
John McGregor
You and I didn’t have, like, a skateboarding trick that sort of related to churches. I’m sure there has to be one.
Aaron Horne
Like, you know, the cross doing something.
John McGregor
Cross it.
Aaron Horne
Yeah. There you guys. Right by. That’s what, many years since Tony Hawk all the way through what I could.
John McGregor
Remember because I disappointed with the.
Aaron Horne
Oh, good. Oh, good. All right, boys, look, it’s. It’s Easter this week, so. Yeah, shout out to everybody that had a good Easter and shout out to all our probably listeners. I’m going to wrap it up there. Um, yeah. Interesting stuff there. I think we’ll try and pop them yeah. More information about that together. And people can write about it at our 414. com real estate website and yeah, show that to everyone out there.
Aaron Horne
It’s always fun to do back to back those. It’s a little bit silly at the end.
Patrick Berry
Thanks, guys.
Aaron Horne
Thanks, guys. So yeah.
John McGregor
Yeah, I reckon time to check you.
Aaron Horne
Have been listening to the parole board recorded and edited by 44. May ask each of the four for property code.
Patrick Berry
This podcast is general information only thought of using space is the name of our panel and listeners should also think that use their own investigation into any topic we discuss to ensure that we understand their own situation.
John McGregor
It does not constitute and should not be relied on as a person selling financial or investment advice or recommendations.
Patrick Berry
Expressed or implied.
John McGregor
And it should not be used as an invitation to take any item or investment services investment decision or activity should be undertaken on the basis of this information without first seeking qualified professional advice.
