Hobart City Council -- Assumptions, Biases + Contradictions

I would like to surgically dissect the Planning Report from Council Planner Liz Wilson over the next few days. Sometimes measurements are tendered, mostly they are not. When no measurement is given, it is sometimes described as  "a bit", "nowhere as near "  , "no discernible", "not significant" etc. Instead of evidence, the latest report/approval/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.... gives a subjective viewpoint which contradicts the Planner from 2005 and even Director of Council, Neil Noye. What this means in simple language is that the Council is looking at the same Sun Diagrams (this will be my first example) as from 5 years ago, and yet come to an entirely different conclusion!

The long and short of it is that this is a real life example of Council writing a Planning Report looking at the same data in 2 different ways, writing 2 opposing viewpoints on the exact same information.

Here are a set of Sun Diagrams commissioned by Council 5 years ago by Tecton. There was an initial first set which I have in my possession and which I vigorously disputed, and so Council submitted the second set which were supposed to be more accurate and expensive (I was told by an independent planner in Kingston).

Firstly, the 2 sets of sun diagrams (1st set not shown) from Council do not match. They are not exactly the same. The sun's orbit was worked out hundreds of years ago, yet sun diagrams are not consistent. This alone should be a problem, but when it is compared to a real world example where I rig up poles and flags to see the actual shadow, this doesn't match the diagrams either. I will post my flags and poles later. For now I would like to show that Council has no problem contradicting themselves, writing a report/approval to reflect both opposing views! It depends whether you want the building approved or not as to how the spin is written.

Here is what Neil Noye, Director of Hobart City Council said about these exact same Sun Diagrams 5 years ago:

"The Shadow Diagrams produced by Tecton confirm that the north east elevation of the rear skillion section of 163 Bathurst St including the door into the lounge room will have unrestricted solar access from approximately 10.30am in the worst case scenario ie 21 June."

I will get back to a few more things Neil said, but we will start with this one. Here is Neil' Noye's report:

The current Planner, Liz Wilson interprets these very same sun diagrams in the totally opposite way and appears to say in effect that I am getting no sun at all, now and it's bad luck but tearing down unit 1 and rebuilding it to it's approved plans would make no difference.

I will start with this comment from Liz: "The building will cause significant overshadowing of the glass door in the 9.00am and 12.00 noon sun diagrams drawn for June 22."

To Be Continued.