Hobart City Council has voted to reject a development application for a cable car on kunanyi/Mount Wellington.

After more than five hours of deputations and debate and a failed attempt to have the matter deferred, the council voted nine-three to accept a planning report recommendation that it reject the proposal.

Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds, Deputy Mayor Helen Burnet, and councillors Jeff Briscoe, Bill Harvey, Peter Sexton, Zelinda Sherlock, Mike Dutta, Damon Thomas and Jax Ewin voted to refuse the application

Marti Zucco, Simon Behrakis and Will Coates voted against refusing the application.

The proposal, lodged by the Mount Wellington Cableway Company (MWCC) included the cableway with its three towers and base station in South Hobart, as well as a restaurant and cafe at the pinnacle, which would require a new building with a maximum height of 11.4 metres.

An independent planners' report last week recommended the council reject the application because it would diminish the tourism, recreational, cultural and landscape values of the mountain.

Deputy Lord Mayor Helen Burnet said the idea of a cable car had split the community for "many, many years".

"I believe that there are really strong reasons for refusal and they're 21 really solid grounds," Ms Burnet said, referring to the reasons given by independent planners who recommended the council refuse the development application.

Ms Burnet said those grounds related to safety, impacts on residential amenity, the environment, and on the mountain's visual amenity and people's quiet enjoyment.

"I have considered what a cable car will do to the majestic Organ Pipes, the cable car will cut across the Organ Pipes just as it cuts across our community — a community divided by this application," she said.

Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said the proposal was different from many other development proposals because it was on public land.

"This is not the same as negotiating with a developer about their own private land … we are the custodians, the caretakers of that land," Ms Reynolds said.

"Community debate about this project has become deeply divisive and that's never a good foundation on which to build a project on public land that is so central to the city's identity."

Ms Reynolds said there was a "lack of sensitivity" in the proposal.

She said Hobartians "living in the shadow and view of the mountain" were particularly passionate about it and regularly run, walk, and visit to "relax, experience, marry and scatter ashes".

Ms Reynolds said they would expect a high standard of development if the mountain were to be developed and the proponents had "consulted but haven't listened". 

'Unacceptable visual impact'

Alderman Damon Thomas said there were people who supported a cable car, but did not support the current proposal because of its impact on the Organ Pipes.

Alderman Jeff Briscoe said his greatest concern about the project was the centre planned for the pinnacle, which he said would disturb an "alpine garden".

"Destroying that alpine garden that has been created over centuries, if not thousands of years, is the greatest danger to our mountain. However, that is not a planning consideration," he said.

"In the eyes of the experts … there's an unacceptable visual impact, there's an unacceptable impact on the quiet enjoyment and there's an unacceptable impact on the quiet enjoyment and there's an unacceptable impact on the geo heritage values, which are not consistent with the values of the park."

Councillors Sherlock and Thomas both said while they were not opposed to the concept of a cable car, they each had concerns about the MWCC's proposal.

Dr Sherlock said the scale of the restaurant and cafe, the cultural significance of kunanyi/Mount Wellington to the Aboriginal community, and the impact on the Organ Pipes were the reasons she would not support the development application.

Mr Thomas said the proposal was "too large, too much".

Alderman Simon Behrakis attempted, but failed, to have the debate deferred.

Mr Behrakis said while there were a large number of reasons given to refuse the application, many "could be addressed either through conditions or amendments".

"I don't see any of the reasons for refusal that are insurmountable," he said.

Alderman Peter Sexton said it was his opinion that the MWCC "had already expended their best efforts" and would not be able to reduce the visual impact of their project on the mountain.

Mr Behrakis said there were different views about the cable way and how it would affect people's enjoyment of the mountain.

"One person in this room might see this as a severe detraction from the enjoyment of the mountain, I would see this as giving greater access to and allowing people to better enjoy the mountain," he said.

Before debate began, the council heard from community groups with an interest in the development. The MWCC also gave a presentation.

MWCC chairman Chris Oldfield said if the project went ahead, "substantial capital raising" would be needed.

"The people who invest their money in this project — and at the moment it's predominantly Tasmanian families — will have to make a decision on whether they believe we have a viable business operating there or not," Mr Oldfield said.

"If we go ahead and build this project, and I sincerely hope we do, we have to do a substantial capital raising to pay for it and part of that will be convincing investors that the business can make a fair return, not a huge return but a fair return."

The proponent can now appeal the decision.

More than a century of dreams

A cableway for kunanyi/Mount Wellington has been talked about for more than a century, with at least seven previous proposals.

In 1895, self-titled "Professor" William John Hackett was the first to be recorded suggesting a form of aerial transport for the mountain.

In 1905, the next proposal, Arnold Wertheimer's Mt Wellington Aerial Railway, was helped along by an act of parliament that authorised Mr Wertheimer to construct an aerial railway. He was given a nominal lease on a strip of land up the mountain.

In the 1990s, Arnold Wertheimer's grandson and namesake, was reported as saying that because there was no sunset clause for his grandfather's proposal, he may have been in a position to develop a cable car.

Parliamentary library workers later discovered the act was repealed in the 1930s.

James Chandler also championed a cableway for the mountain in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

In 1937 the road to the pinnacle opened, but that did not put a stop to dreams of a cable car.

In the late 1980s engineer Tim Burbury, who had worked on the Tasman Bridge proposed another vision for a cable car — Skyway — which would run from Cascade to the pinnacle.

On Burbury's death in 2010, he was said to have passed the mantle for the cable car campaign to Adrian Bold — the current technical director of MMCC.

While Burbury is not referred to by name on the current MWCC website, Mr Bold is quoted as saying:

"I am honoured to have been gifted the previous proponent's blessing and am committed to realising his lifelong dream," he said.

Mr Bold came on to the cable scene in 2012. By 2013, he had the confidence to tell reporters the project would be up and running by 2017.