Feb 6, 2025

Dear Editor,

The high rise development project put forward by Darwin Council Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis for a new civic centre combined with private office space is likely to detract significantly from the high quality character, ambience and surroundings of this historic and very attractive area of Darwin city.

In addition, it is likely to prove very expensive and put ratepayers and others at substantial financial risk.

It is essential that the history, character and beauty of Darwin be protected from irresponsible developments.

Mr Vatskalis would appear to have a major conflict of interest that must be of concern to not only Darwin rate payers but all the people of Darwin, given the potential of this project to be a significant eye-sore on the civic centre, and to pose substantial financial risks for the people of Darwin.

In addition, many would regard Mr Vatskalis to be completely out of his depth in suddenly wishing to become a major developer of high rise buildings.

He possesses neither the skills, capabilities or experience to work with, manage, and direct other developers in the interests of the people of Darwin.

Rather, it is far more likely that Mr Vatskalis and the council will be ‘taken to the cleaners’, and the people of Darwin will end up paying for his lack of competence in this area.

I would strongly suggest that Mr Vatskalis attempt to get on top of his main responsibilities.

In local government this involves focussing on matters including sufficient car parking, local roads and footpaths, parks, local environmental issues, waste disposal and community services.

He should concentrate on devising economic strategies and creating suitable conditions for economic development so that business can flourish in Darwin in a current, economically depressed environment – not attempt to become a part-time developer of high rise buildings himself.

It is far from clear for example how the council is properly managing car parks in the Darwin CBD, under Mr Vatskalis, given the sale of a major car park site to Charles Darwin University, and the loss of car parks from the proposed development site against those the number that is proposed in total for the building.

It is also not clear of the legality of the council using funding $40 million worth of collected via car-park levies on a single project, such as this which seems to produced a relatively small amount of public car parking.

It is essential that Mr Vatskalis make public the detail of the development agreement, particularly the costs of development, and details of arrangements with the main joint venture partner. He also needs to explain as a matter of priority how the project is to be financed, the main risks associated with the project, and who is to bear the main risks of project failure.

Mr Vatskalis also needs to explain how this project can be expected to be financially viable given the current state of the Northern Territory and Darwin economy against a background of very high and escalating levels of government debt and a very fragile Territory budget.

Further, he needs to explain why in this financial and economic environment, this is a responsible project for the city council to be involved in, given his prime responsibilities in terms of planning to stimulate Darwin city business economic activity appear to be both confused and failing.

In addition, it is important that Mr Vatskalis explain whether this development has been the subject of discussions with previous Labor Government, as a previous Labor minister, and whether the previous Labor Government was in favour of this development and provided him the encouragement to proceed.

DF Adelaide