The Gorge Hotel

The JAC Group purchased the TRC Hotel and Bottle Shop and several houses and units beside its Penny Royal Hotel in 2016, with the intention of developing a fifty million dollar five-star hotel at Launceston in Tasmania. The land is the last prime development site on the edge of the Tamar River Basin four hundred metres from the CBD and only three hundred and fifty metres from the Cataract Gorge, which is Northern Tasmania’s most popular and iconic tourist attraction. After developing a commercial car park on the site as an interim measure the JAC Group ran a commissioned design competition paying six architects to each come up with a different design for the Gorge Hotel. The designs were then assessed by expert planners, landscape architects, quantity surveyors, construction project managers and international hotel operators. CBG Architects from Melbourne was announced as the winning design which included one hundred and forty-five rooms with five double sized penthouse suites, a bar and restaurant with a 500-seat function centre overlooking the Tamar River, roof-top cocktail bar, gym, day spa and retail space. The development application was approved by the City of Launceston council ten to one in favour in December 2019 but refused on appeal despite the Resource Management and Planning Appeal Tribunal finding no adverse impact on the amenity of any neighbours. The sole ground of refusal was based on the Tribunal’s interpretation of the requirement to be compatible with the ‘surrounding area’ which is undefined in the Launceston Interim Planning Scheme. The Tribunal effectively held that a tall building that is substantially higher than existing buildings within one hundred metres cannot be approved under the planning scheme even though there are buildings of similar height within the broader surrounding area of the CBD, and all five of those tall buildings are on titles more than one hundred metres apart. To address this issue, the JAC Group lodged a planning scheme amendment for a specific area plan that made  the height of the Gorge Hotel permitted. The amendment was supported by the City of Launceston and approved by the Tasmanian Planning Commission in 2022, seven years after the project was first announced.