Tasman Council
Framed by dramatic coastlines and World Heritage landscapes, the Tasman Region sits on Tasmania’s south-eastern edge — a place where remoteness shapes identity.
Home to a resilient community of just over 2,600 people, the region’s population swells to more than 10,000 in peak tourist season. Its geographic isolation is both a defining strength and a continuing planning challenge, offering a rare sense of place that balances opportunity with complexity.
Within its boundaries are two World Heritage properties—the Port Arthur Historic Site and the Coal Mine Historic Site, as well as some of Tasmania's most iconic landscapes and visitor destinations, including the Tasman National Park and the Three Capes Track. Yet beneath its natural beauty lie complex challenges. The region faces both macro and micro trends: an ageing population, housing stress driven by holiday homes and short-term rentals, limited infrastructure, rising climate risks, and a tourism-dependent economy that peaks seasonally.
Within this context, the Tasman Region Structure Plan and Economic Development Strategy mark a milestone, as it is Tasman Council's first integrated, long-term planning framework for the region. The framework aligns land use, infrastructure, and economic development across the five townships of Nubeena and White Beach, Port Arthur, Taranna, Eaglehawk Neck, and Murdunna.
Our staged approach included:
- Community engagement anchored in a deep understanding of the local conditions, challenges, and opportunities.
- A unified vision that brought together land use planning and community aspirations to set clear strategic directions for the region's future.
- A spatial framework informed by landscape character and place analysis, defining land use priorities across all five townships.
- An evidence-based economic development strategy tailored to the region's unique demographic, environmental and economic context.
The result is a place-based, fully integrated framework to guide sustainable growth and investment across the Tasman municipality. Delivered by an integrated team led by REALM Studios and supported by SGS Economics and Planning and Ireneinc Planning and Urban Design. The project is now endorsed by Tasman Council and is being implemented through local policy alignment, advocacy, and planning scheme updates.
This project was nominated for planning excellence at the 2025 PIA TAS Awards.
