Margate CBD Shopping Centre VACANT lot - 9 years later & still waiting!
Channel: Gideon Cordover
Date: 2021-07-06

Kingborough Council public meeting 06 July 2021.

Councillor Gideon Cordover seeks solutions to get Margate's retail precinct activated after 9 years (and counting!) waiting for a developer to start work on their shopping centre project, nine years after being granted a permit.

Gideon asks:
"The Margate Shopping Centre vacant land, where the hardware used to be, has been in the Mercury newspaper again recently, and the LGAT CEO is quoted as saying, “There are currently no tools available to councils to compel a developer who has met the legal requirements of substantial commencement - and that can be as simple as pouring a slab - to progress the project,"
Please outline the process by which the Council, LGAT or the state government could pursue a “use it or lose it” planning scheme amendment, altering the legislation in such a way as to stiffen the criteria for “substantial commencement” so that a major developer such as the Kalis Group would have to use it or lose it."

The full video of the council meeting is available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VliDD4ldG0o

The meeting agenda and minutes are available here:
https://www.kingborough.tas.gov.au/council/council-meetings/meetings-archive/