Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis has labeled critics of the RSL’s Esplanade development proposal “dream destroyers” as the council moves to vote on Tuesday evening on the fate of the $10 million development.

Despite strong opposition from various groups, Mr Vatskalis remains positive about the RSL proposal, but added he did not see any other kind of development appropriate for the Esplanade other than the RSL because of the historical connection. Aldermen with vote on the proposal tonight.

The proposal is for a two-storey building covering more than 3,000 square metres, with a ground floor cafe for public use, and a first-floor licensed club for members and guests.

“I can’t see anything else to fit there, considering the historical value of the place,” he said in an interview with ABC Radio Darwin Tuesday morning.

“I think the RSL is more appropriate than a Throb or anything else. Let’s keep the decorum, and the RSL proposal to be next to the Cenotaph. So, there’s a very close relation between the two.”

“A nightclub or a hotel does not have any relationship with the Esplanade, so I’ll be the first one to say forget it.”

Mr Vatskalis also brushed off differing opinions on the proposed development saying that people don’t want anything. When asked why the site the RSL has proposed to build on was not put out to tender to develop, he said the first people who came up with the ideas should have the opportunity to put it to council and develop it, otherwise there would be an endless circle of tenders and nothing would happen.

“Some people are in favour, some are against. Now, the issue in Darwin, when you say everytime you try to do something, there will be a group of people jumping up and say, we don’t want this to happen,” he said.

“And Nightcliff cafe comes to mind. The Waterfront comes to mind. The lights at the ovals come to mind. The Friends of Bagot who don’t want a new creation there [Bagot Park], they want a park.

“I’m sometimes amazed that people want everything in Darwin, but they don’t want anything.

“I call them dream destroyers, because the dreams don’t come to Darwin. Please, go somewhere else.”

Online petitions vs RSL

More than 10,000 people signed the Deckchair Cinema petition against the RSL development which was tabled in the NT Parliament early this year. But Mr Vatskalis said 7,000 of these signatories came from down south and has asserted that it’s only up to Darwin people to decide whether the RSL development would happen.

“According to the admission by the Deck Chair theater, all the signatures were collected Australian-wide not [only] Darwin-wide, 7,000 signatures came from down south,” he said in the ABC interview.

Mr Vatskalis was asked how it was possible to get the signatures amid the COVID-19 pandemic and said that it was electronically done.

“People come here to visit Darwin and some of them would go to theater. And this is the reality, people can actually vote with their signatures electronically,” he said.

Darwin Council staff has already given in-principle support to the RSL development. The RSL Darwin Sub-branch is asking the council for a 99-year lease of land near the Cenotaph and a Bombing of Darwin garden.

Mr Vatskalis said he doesn’t know how much the valuation would be for the RSL, but he said that it’s not going to be cheap.

“It’s not gifting the land, if not giving it away,” he said.

“We don’t want to sell the Esplanade that’s the end of the story.”

He explained that tonight’s council vote didn’t guarantee the project will go ahead but if they voted against it, it would be dead.

“In-principle, we’ll support but you have to go now, and come back to us with a business case that proves that your business will be successful,” he said.

“You have to do public consultation with all the surrounding people in the residence business; they have to do a noise survey, light survey, planning, because to change the planning and everything, tell us if you successfully address all our concerns, and then we can agree to proceed to the next stage to allow you to build.”