The Bloodied Wombat: planning

Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts

Sunday, 15 January 2023

Reforming Local Councils in Metropolitan Melbourne - the Possibilities for Better Planning and Heritage Outcomes

Local Councils have been in the news again, with a new poll from polling firm RedBridge published in the Herald-Sun this week, showing a majority of Victorians are dissatisfied with the current Council structure, and large number would like to see Councils abolished altogether.

The findings cannot be easily dismissed, but they can of course easily be parlayed into nonsense by a paper that's been waging various ideological wars of its own against particular local governments at what it deems the "woker" end of the spectrum.

So, the Herald-Sun was of course all out to draw qualitative conclusions from research that was ostensibly quantitative in nature, and a few related issues should be dealt with in detail before we look at the actual implications of the data.

The Herald-Sun ran with the implicit spin that Victorians don't want their precious rates being spent on things like public art initiatives, and innovative children's playground forms. Something of a hobby horse for the paper, especially in the inner city where Greens representation on those councils can be used as evidence of some brand of crazy "wokeism" at work which can be railed against.

The thesis is apparently not borne out in any of the research, and in the big poll which matters - namely Council elections, there is zero evidence that residents and ratepayers in the inner city reject "wokeism" in any form - they keep voting for "woke" candidates.

The City of Melbourne's new "Boulder Park" at Southbank, and example of Councils enacting best practice, evidence-based and innovative ideas and then having even ABC Radio journos try and override discourse with their feelpinions

The HUN's Barabarian War on Public Art

In particular the Herlad-Sun should be cautioned by its own data reflecting these anti-Council sentiments are most stronly held by milennial respondents. And if anyone out these has some conception that milennials are out there raging against "wokeism" and don't want public funds spent on public art initiatives, they probably need to conduct a little of their own research.

What milennials ARE deeply concerned about is being able to make their way into the property market, and the fact that relatively smaller and declining numbers are doing so, means that a lot of people who aren't actually ratepayers are having words put in their both by both Ratepayers Victoria and the Herald-Sun in order to fit their own narratives.

Milennial Vibes

The perception amongst milennials most likely stems from the not inconsequential impost of council rates is yet another barrier to home ownership, and a perception that Councils act to artificially constrain the new housing supply, which when you look at the way the Neighbourhood Residential Zone, restricting residential development across the geographic majority of Melbourne to in most cases two storeys, is a readily supportable argument.

So, let's not allow any perception that councils enacting things like public art initiatives or innovative playspaces for kids is the problem.

You might be able to make folks who don't live in the area laugh at a skeletor banana sculpture, but the residents of Yarra, who actually paid for the thing are the ones whose feedback actually matters, and it matters most every four years when the entire suburb is polled at election time. And inner city voters are not voting at any scale for "focus on taking my bins out" candidates.

In fact it is LONG since overdue for the City of Melbourne to revive the sort of large-scale public art programme that was enacted at the time Swanston Walk was created, which gave the city some of its most-loved public artworks, and much of its contemporary character and brand values.

Retaining that kind of point of difference relative to suburban shopping malls is critical to the revival of the CBD in a its new post-COVID challenges. So, enough with the barbarian raging against public art, and let's deal with the real issues.

Local Government and Economies of Scale

I actually began writing this blog many years ago but never really finished an investigation into the challenges that are faced by suburban coucils relative to the City of Melbourne.

Having spent enough time involved in the planning space, as administered by various councils, I think the inescapable conclusion is that suburban Councils, in spite of the agglomeration effects achieved via the Kennett reforms in the early 1990s, which amalgamated 200 Victorian councils down to 78 still lack the critical mass and resources to deal with planning matters specifically in a timely and effective manner.

I based this conclusion on seeing the effectiveness of Melbourne City Council in being routinely able to assess and process planning applications in a timely manner, and in no small part because they have an exponentially higher number of actual planning staff and departmental budgets relative to suburban councils, and the very obvious conclusion from this is that the Local Government Areas (LGA) covered by suburban councils are too small for those bodies to be effective.

And what's true of planning is true of really all other areas of council to some degree or other. Activities are being replicated - the wheel is being constantly being re-invented at several places and to several varying degrees of effectiveness, and learnings about such effectiveness remain silo-ised in a local geography rather than rolled out as best practice at an urban scale.

So, here's what I would do -

The Wombat Plan for Reforming Local Government in Metropolitan Melbourne

We are leaving out any changes to regional councils, as I think regional Victorians would most likely tell us that they see the need for a body that operated with a level of local knowledge and capable of a level local advocacy, such that doubling the size of the LGA would not afford.

And we are setting aside the idea that it would be most effective for EVERYTHING that local governments currently have responsibility for would be more effectively handled by being rolled up Victoria-wide into the State Government and its already task-bloated public service bodies.

I think an "abolitionist model" would absolutely rolled-gold guarantee that when RedBridge did a follow-up survey in 10 years time, that even higher numbers of people were dissatisfied with how the government for instance handled planning issues, and people would wind up feeling more dissatisfied, unrepresented and that their rates were just disappearing into a giant consoloidated revenue cauldron, and they had zero sense of getting any value for money.

I think it still does and always will make sense for there to remain a separate elected tier of government that specifically has responsibility for local-level administration, and which depelops capabilities and critical scale in effectively delivering local-level government functions, and I don't think the whoelsale abolition of local government would deliver positive outcomes for anyone.

I am guided here by the principle the Melbourne is and should be moving to establish a series of major local activity centres in the suburbs

1. Planning for greenfields estates and metropolitan activity centres should be taken (somewhat in the vein of the legislation accompanying the Suburban Rail Loop) out of the hands of councils entirely. Those planning powers should be handed to a new body within the already-far-too-bloated Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, that is ACTUALLY (and that emphasis is there to suggest that the backgrounds and expertise of the people we routinely see pumping planning assessments out of DELWP are just pen pushers and yes-people with no genuine policy expertise in effective planning outcomes, based on the content of the majority of those assessments "oh yes, we need to greenlight the demolition of the supposedly protected Jack Dyer Stand because the government has already committed funds to the project). The new body should be staffed by people with actual expertise in placemaking and EFFICTIVE (whereby the metrics are actually around design quality and "20 minite city" type outcomes rather than just volume of development) tactical urbanism, and its KPIs should be mostly derived from the qualitative, rather than the quantitative domain.

2. Similarly, responsibility for the LISTING of heritage overlays, should be taken away from local government and handed to a properly-resourced Heritage Victoria, which then moves to undertake a series of Melbourne-wide thematic studies that ensures that ALL the important typologies are univerally protected to the same methodology across the entire state of Victoria, rather than the arbitray swiss cheese hodge-podge that has arisen under the current "system". Planning applications for those properties can still go through the regular planning processes, but the actual application of heritage overlays needs to be taken out of the political/council domain, where Councillors have shown themselves far too responsive to the supposed needs of a small number of affected residents when they squeal about having their award-winning mid-century modernist building listed.

3. The State Government should go completely back to the drawing board with zoning - reform the Neighbourhood Residential Zone to allow as-of-right development to FOUR storeys, and set targets for the application of zoning typologies across municipalities that significantly reduces the places where NRZ zoning winds up being applied. So, we rely on HERITAGE protection to retain neighbourhood character in important locations, while saying those places can then also be signifcantly densified (demolition, not redevelopment being the enemy - and that's specifically what heritage practice gives effect to).

4. Amalgamate all Councils in Metropolitan Melbourne to just FIVE. One Greater Melbourne Council, covering All of the current Cities of Melbourne, Port Phillip and Yarra, plus the innermost areas of Stonnington, Boroondara, Maribyrnong, Hobsons Bay, Merri-Bek, Moonee Valley and Darebin, and then four outer suburban councils - North, East, West and South.

5. Simultaneously remove the business gerrymander in the City of Melbourne, which was only ever instituted by the Brumby government because they were scared of giving the Greens some sort of permanent role. Which IS the same principle by which republicans try and disenfranchise the votes of people of colour in the US. No matter how much you dislike the Greens, it's as pathetic and immoral (albeit not actually racist) for the ALP to disenfranchise inner-city voters in the same way. The expanded boundaries should have similar dilutionary effects, anyway.

Case Studies from the Heritage Arena

I may as well publish a slightly redacted form of the original article I was writing on this which coincided with the State Upper House's 2022 enquiry into heritage protection in Victoria. That process ultimately turned out to be pointless, as the Commitee seemed to be working to a brief that it wasn't going to even countenance any sort of revision of the system - one in which every stakeholder from Councils through to Heritage Victoria was apparently more interested in defending their own vested interests than actually looking at the wholistic (or even potentially best) operation of the system.

Giving the pollies easy cover to dismiss anything through "well Heritage Victoria don't see the need for any change, and so neither do we" ...

So, let's take a SECOND CHANCE to seize some initiative to deliver better outcomes across myriad areas of planning and let's take a look at shaking up the entire planning regime, at the same time as we look at addressing voters' concerns in relation to the operation of local councils.

Apologies if the next section which looks at some of the failures in council heritage management is a little disjointed from the rest, but that's how it was born, and its pointless having it all sit there in draft format when the topic seems so pertinent to currently-open policy windows.

Graffiti spary painted across temporary hoardings outside the recently demolished 1880s mansion at 34 Armadale St, Armadale, left unprotected by Stonnington Council

Heritage in the State of Victoria can be a confusing beast. It's a mish-mash of responsibilities ascribed variously to every level of government in Australia.

A handful of sites are protected under Federal legislation. The Heritage Council of Victoria also maintains a far more extensive inventory of buildings deemed to be of "State-level significance" called the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR).

But confusingly for many, the Heritage Council also mainatains an online database called the "Victorian Heritage Directory", which also lists many "local-level significance" sites, and records sites which have actually been demolished and have no ongoing heritage protection - usually on the basis that the site may still have some archaeological significance, sometimes just by way of the fact that the site may once have had a National Trust listing, but the significant building has been long since demolished.

Many Victorians are surprised to learn that a National Trust listing has absolutely no weight in law whatsoever. The National Trust is a private organisation that has both a lobbying role, and which owns and maintains a large number of sites throughout the State, which it manages effectively on the public's behalf, but it has absolutely no formal role in the heritage protection process.

Further confusing the matter, nominations to the VHR are actually made through a separate body - Heritage Victoria.

The recently demolished 1880s property at 34 Armadale St, Armadale

But for anything which is deemed to be of "local-level significance" - which is upwards of 80% of all heritage sites in Victoria, responsiblity falls on local councils to commission heritage professionals to conduct heritage surveys which provide reasonably in-depth assessments of all applicable properties within their municipal boundaries.

It is then up to Councils to use those recommendations to advise the State Planning Department which sites deserve a formal Heritage Overlay, and the Planning Minister then has final veto on all of those listings.

Once a heritage overlay has been approved by the Minister, it then appears in the Melbourne Planning Scheme, which is actually the only definitive reference for all protected heritage sites in Victoria.

To complete the mish-mash, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) sits across all of this as an avenue of appeal, in practical terms virtually exclusively for developers, who may appeal any rejection of any development proposal by any Council (or indeed even by the Minister) directly to that body, and which has in the past shown itself willing to set aside Council heritage listings if they are able to find anything which they deem to be flawed in the process (and that can include simple failures by Councils to retain the necessary paperwork).

It is the belief of this author that the very existence of VCAT is profoundly anti-democratic. An unelected body comprised exclusively of a handful of elite lawyers (definitionally NOT therefore representatve of anything but de facto pro-development, process-driven, well-to-do individuals) sits above every single decision ever made by every level of government in Victoria - including the Minister.

This is "shadow democracy" stuff. How can there possibly be any higher body than our elected officials, who are accountable to the community for every decision they make, every four years when we all come together to express our collective will at a general election where every eligible citizen has a formal say? But this is veering off-topic for this particular blog, I'll dish out a more extensive critique of VCAT in a forthcoming post.

Heritage Chalk and Cheese

- Melbourne City Council vs Local Suburban Councils

I began my heritage activism days involved with Melbourne Heritage Action (MHA), which is actually part of the National Trust, but which the Trust established in 20##, following the appalling decision of Robert "Demolition" Doyle's Melbourne City Council to approve the demolition of Lonsdale House on Lonsdale Street for the entrance to a flipping shopping centre. MHA's role is to undertake lobbying exclusively of Melbourne City Council on heritage issues affecting largely only the CBD and Southbank.

MHA has had a commendable degree of success in lobbying Council variously for the protection of individual sites, and for a comprehensive review of its heritage inventory. So much success, in fact that it can be stated with some confidence that probably something north of 95% of the sites which the community would expect to be protected by a local heritage overlay within the boundaries of the City of Melbourne Local Government Area (LGA) now in fact have that protection.

And it is based on that success that I decided to set up an equivalent body within my own LGA - the City of Moonee Valley. But it is based on my contrasting experiences in lobbying the two very different bodies that I now delare that local suburban councils are categorically not up to the task of maintaining our local heritage inventory, and it is for this reason that we have seen the slew of recent media headlines around outrageous demolitions of clearly significant heritage properties in our suburbs.

Wreckers move on the former Idylwilde mansion, built in 1915 in St Georges Road, Toorak

Victorian Council budgets range from the lowest resourced, with an annual budget of just $11.7m all the way up to Melbourne City Council's massive budget of $660m. Rural councils have an average budget of just $69 million, while metropolitan councils have an average budget of $201 million available to them.

Considering how much of the state's valuable heritage is actually situated outside metropolitan Melbourne, where former goldfields cities like Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine are important heritage hotspots in their own right, the resource issues as applicable here to suburban Melbourne councils are obviously even more dire in regional areas.

Put another way, Melbourne City Council has over three times the resources of the average Melbourne suburban council and fully ten times the resouces of the average rural borough. By my own very basic intuitive estimates, that would also approximately reflect the disparity in resources allocated to planning between them.

This is reflected on a practical level in many different ways which I will delve further into below, but the real effect of this disparity in resources is that within the Melbourne CBD, 95% or more of the heritage properties which the community rightly expects to be protected do have some protection.

While in the suburbs which form the built environment where the majority of the community makes its home, where families are raised, and daily life is most usually lived - our LOCAL communities, the heritage coverage level is extremely patchy at best. And all the recent headlines have shown that coverage to be on average FAR below community expectations.

And this failure has wider practical implications. In that community support for the present levels of population growth that are largely the driver of all our recent economic growth (and which are necessary to sustain an aging population) is being seriously eroded by a sense that the character and nature of the built environment in our suburban neighbourhoods, that in many cases represents the very reason why families have chosen to situate themselves there at all is being too severely compromsed, and generating unnecessary anxiety about population growth overall.

The property at 5 Tiuna Grove, Elwood, which Port Phillip Mayor Dick Gross stated "should have been protected by a heritage overlay, but appear(s) to have been mistakenly left out." (my emphasis)

It has been put to me by several little birdies recently that the State Planning Department is extremely irritated by the recent slew of piecemeal, ambulance-chsing, wise-after-the-event requests from suburban councils for one-off, case by case interim heritage listings only once a demolition proposal is active on a particular property. The very strong implication is that councils are actually using these requests as a proxy anti-development measure, and so the Department is pushing back against these requests, and only granting them in the most rigorous of circumstances.

In one breath, I understand the Deprtment's frustration. One needs to remember that all the Department's decisions still have the spectre of VCAT looming over them, and it needs therefore to necessarily be very process driven. It's a waste of everyone's time and scarce resources to go through all these processes if developers are still going to get the outcome they are seeking through the expense and rigmarole of a VCAT hearing.

The 1885 Currajong House at 337 Auburn Rd was saved by the Planning Minister's inetervention, after being left unprotected by Boroondara Council

And the reality is that local Victorian councils have very specifically had responsibility and power for protecting local level heritage in this state since 1984, fully 35 years now. Where the brickbats tend to fly in the media at the Minister for not intervening in a lot of these cases, it's actually councils who truly deserve to be copping it most directly.

Neither the Department nor the Minister have any history of refusing the findings of council heritage surveys if properly conducted (VCAT's record on this is patchier, but again that's for another day).

The roles and responsibilities of the various parties are very specifically outlined under the current regime. All the unprotected 19th century properties that are cited in this post have all been standing there unprotected, every single day since 1984. Every iterative day of those 35 years has been another opportunity missed for local councils to commission the necessary heritage studies to dial adequate protections into the Planning Scheme.

The 1890s house at 55 SEYMOUR RD ELSTERNWICK was recently demolished, after being left unprotected by Glen Eira Council

If the finger should systemically be pointed anywhere, then it is definitely at our local councils. There have recently been a series of strident and overly politicised calls for the Minister to, for instance remove the planning "loophole" which prevents the application of an interim heritage overlay on a property where a demolition permit has already been issued.

I would strongly suggest that this "loophole" does in fact revert onus too strongly back in favour of developers, and should be removed. But as I am fond of saying, the great thing about having a rigorous and comprehensive heritage regime is that it provides absolute certainty to all parties.

Developers and purchasers are able to act knowing exactly what can and cannot be demolished, and make a proper assessment bearing that in mind when looking at any property aquisition. In this sense, a comprehensive heritage regime actually performs a vital economic function.

But our elected representatives also exist at every level to stand up for the community's needs in the face of the necessarily highly process-driven machinations of governance. However you may wish to apportion blame, it is DEFINITELY NEVER the community's fault that their local council has been derelict in their responsiibility to protect the heritage within its remit.

This four-bedroom Hawthorn brick Victorian at 4 Victoria Avenue, Canterbury, has no heritage overlay. Photo: Jellis Craig

While it remains the irreplaceable fabric of our neighbourhoods that is ultimately on the line in these decisions, it is not good enough for the Department to be knocking back requests for interim protection merely because of a lack of timeliness in the request. The Minister and the Department must act both systemically and in response to individual requests to collectively protect the community and our heritage from these serial failings at a Council level.

I will look in more detail below at some better suggested Departmental responses which could easily be enacted today in order to better improve the operation of the system overall. But to address those in-depth requires first a deeper analysis of the myriad ways in which our local councils are routinely failing to uphold their end of the bargain.

It was put to me recently in some discussions on the Moonee Valley Heritage Action Facebook page that there really ought to be no issues around council resources owing to the strength of the present development wave because they should all be receiving an equally large uplift in rates received. There are several reasons why this is not the case.

Firstly, the one routinely and necessarily lags the other. Heritage studies are relatively in-depth processes, and as we shall see shortly are in many cases taking several years to deliver what would otherwise seem like relatively simple and readily self-contained reports. Whereas the new ratepayers don't spontaneously appear as soon as a new development proposal is received.

Furthermore, there are only so many qualified heritage professionals practicing in Victoria, and the demands on their time have never been higher.

But most importantly rates only represent on average 55% of councils' annual budgets, and have been capped in their growth (and you as ratepayers yourselves of course actually applaud this) by the Andrews Labor Government to approximate CPI increases.

Suburban Councils Lack the Reseources to keep their heritage inventory up to date in the face of the largest development and growth wave that Melbourne has ever seen.

studies are not performed often enough
there is no imperative for Councils to have conducted reviews of all periods
the scoping process for inclusion in heritage studies is inadequate
the studies take far too long to deliver, owing to lack of resources
the studies that are performed are constrained in scope

Tuesday, 15 June 2021

The Death of Melbourne's CBD has been Greatly Exaggerated

Google any news article to do with Melbourne CBD in the last 12 months, and you'll find 95% of those articles pertain in some way to its prophesied demise.

There's no question that the CBD is going to be doing it tough for the forseeable future, but there's also no question in my mind that Melbourne will actually be back on a pre-pandemic trajectory over the medium term, provided enough sound policy to nudge it back in that direction.

Reasons why Melbourne CBD would naturally be expected to recover over the medium-term

1. It's Central to Potential

COVID has accelerated the public acceptance of the desirability of a 20 minute nighbourhood. The CBD is the geographic centre of the city, and all of its surrounding suburbs have been densifying markedly over the past decade. We have already seen COVID strengthen demand for medium density office and residential development in those areas, and this actualy bodes well for strong future demnd for development on the scale and density that is proposed for the Fishermans Bend and Arden- Macaulay redevelopment zones.

Melbourne CBD has really only in recent decades reaped the rewards of having been surrounded by acres of marshland to its south and west. The CBD will remain effectively part of the 20 minute neighbourhood for all these areas, as well as a densifying north, east, west Melbourne, Carlton, Flemington, Kensington, etc. I also believe tremendous potential exists for redeveloping the Dynon rail yards and later the remainder of Docklands, but we will discuss this in more detail at a later date.

2. It's Still the Geographic and Economic Heart

Critical Mass matters. In planning and in Economics. The CBD is now home to something in the order of 80,000 residents. Many of those were international students, but regardless, we keep forgetting that we broke the "doughnut city" model in the 1990s, before the international students arrived en masse. The CBD IS the 20 minute neighbourhood to tens of thousands of people now, and while the projected pre-COVID growth for CBD high rise apartments will almost certainly take decades to recover, this now presents further opportunities, as we will discuss shortly.

In spite of the trend towards work from home, we've already seen other Australian CBD occupancy rates rise above 80%. So you'd have to say work from home is actually ultimately going to impact by something like that quntum. I also believe that firms are going to cruch the productivity numbers on work from home at some point, and we will actully see pressure being placed on employees to minimise work from home over the medium term.

There seems to be a curious inversion of the power relationship right now evident in the comments section of all these articles that suggests people are convinced they are actually going to be able to dictate the future extent of work from home to their employers. I think this remains to be seen.

The question of economic critical mass cannot be overstated, either. Regardless of how many companies downsize or leave the CBD, it will still be by far the largest employment geography, with all the attendant economic activity that necessarily comes with that. Moomba will never be moved to Chadstone, for instance.

3. The Projections Don't Map to Current Evidence

The CBD over the medium term WILL recover to 80%+ occupancy, just like Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, and overall economic growth has almost already rebounded to pre-COVID levels.

The borders will eventually be opened again, and the internatioinal students will return, but it remins to be seen in what quantum.

Immigration will also return, population growth will resume and once more accelerate that economic growth, immigrants will also tend to be overall more accepting of higher density living arrangements, and will tend overall to settle in Melbourne and Sydney.

4. We've Seen it All Before

The effects of the influenza pandemic of 19 were not dissimilar upon CBD activity, yet history seems to suggest learned pandemic behaviours are quickly shed.

Especially given the growth trends were so strong pre-COVID, I for one expect things to gravitate back towards the old trends faster than most commentators assume, notwithstanding the clear and ongoing trend towards work from home means it won't necessarily return to quite the same hectic levels, which is frankly going to be better for maintaining the CBD's long-run amenity, regardless.

5. Pre-COVID Growth was Spectacular

The CBD was already under severe growth pressure pre-COVID, the Property Council were screaming at the Planning Minister that his new CBD controls had left only a hndful of developable sites in the CBD.

So, I think all of the above suggests we are going to see levels of activity within the Melbourne CBD back at pre-pandemic levels naturally over the medium term.

But I also think it suggests some specific policy directions to ensure that we get there within the shortest possible timeframe. Announcing the ...

Wombat Melbourne Fightback Plan ...

Pause and Re-Load

We should declare the CBD now essentially FULL in terms of the scale of further development allowable. Melburnians love their CBD, but the consensus was clear that most people felt the scale of development seen since the late 2000s was threatening the character of what they loved.

Rendering the pause on lrge-scale development semi-permanent is thus critical to the maintenance of "Brand CBD", especially considering demand for development on that scale - both office and residential is at best set for an approximate decade-long pause. Even more especially considering we have such ample tracts of development land now becoming available at the CBD fringe.

We should seize this opportunity to say "the CBD is at the limits of its capability to retain its heritage character, and its urban amenity in terms of sunlight ever hitting the footpath". Our task now is to get the fabric that we are dealt with here back to its earlier state of vibrancy. That will take some time, but simply adding supply to the mix seems like the worst possible strategy.

There are large projected vacancies in the B, C and D grade office stocks, opportunities will exist to refurbish those buildings (which in general tend to contribute least to the existing urban fabric anyway) by way of maintaining supply.

Further demand, and indeed the demand for residential and office development more at medium rather than higher density within a well planned neighbourhood can then be taken up by Fishermans Bend, e-gate, Arden-Macaulay and potentially Dynon and Docklands 2. These areas would then become part of a "greater CBD" and activity from the new development areas would naturally contribute to revitalising the neighbouring CBD/Docklands areas, and indeed giving Docklands the geograpic focus it has always been lacking.

New Social Housing Focus

The State Government is already buying up CBD apartment stock for social housing. There is no better location to place people with social housing needs than the CBD, from where they have access to virtully the entire metropolitan employment market without the need to own a car. Social housing tenants are another sector that are going to be more accepting of high density living arangements, and many would view the grade of housing stock on offer in the CBD as vastly superior to the social housing norm. I think the opportunities to actually solve some of the city's more critical housing issues is one of the silver linings hidden in the pandemic cloud.

A lot of artists and creative industries have been pushed out of the CBD in recent years through gentrification, and the opportunity exists to use the glut of both apartments and retail spaces to re-instate the CBD's role as a space where adventurous creative industries can thrive and put their product before an audience on a cost-effective basis, whilst at the same time enhancing those points of difference for CBD retail that Chadstone will never be able to compete with.

Retail Revival

For retail, I'd suggest we need to stop all these people out there rubbishing the CBD in the comments section of all these articles. The CBD needs to be THE place to shop again, even if folks do it late night or weekends rather than during their lunchtimes.

Melbourne has always struggled to make late night shopping happen systemically, but it's the point of difference relative to Chadstone (which can't effectively cater to anyone in the western suburbs), only the Melbourne CBD could transform itself into more of a late night or even 24 hour shopping destination for the whole city. The Council should think about policies that can push us more in this direction.

The opportunity also exists to seize the initiative to create a proper pedestrian retail environment the entire length of Elizabeth Street, in line with previous Wombat plans to create "the Asia-Pacific's largest outdoor mall". I think this emphasis wants accelerating. I think a campaign that emphasises not just that shopping the CBD is ten times more fun and a hundred times more soulful than shopping Chadstone, but that part of the attrction is that everything is OUTDOORS.

How many times have you seen"The Bourke Street Mall" come up as an infection site? Versus "Suburban indoor shopping centre food court", etc? Melbourne should be selling the OUTDOOR nature of its shopping experience, making the most of the MARKET as part of the overall experience, turn the tables on this damn virus and say "Melbourne CBD is the most COVID-safe major shopping centre available to you!"

So how about we put a pause on all the things that we felt were hampering Melbourne before anyway. How about we accept acceerating the push to a 20 minute city will be one of the pandemic's legacies, and we strive to make Melbourne CBD a part of that strategy for as many people as possible? How about we give our transport network the kind of off-peak service frequencies that mean people can turn up and go to the CBD within 20 minutes from Fisherman's Bend, Southbank, Docklands, Flemington, Kensington, Carlton, Nth Melbourne, Parkville, St Kilda Rd, East Melbourne, West Melbourne, etc. but we also from new proximate activity centres - Footscray, Moonee Ponds, Abbotsford, Collingwood, Cremorne, Burnley.

But I tell you what, you CANNOT do that at Fisherman's Bend, without a plan to get both heavy rail and additional tram routes in there via Southbank in the first case and Docklands the latter.

Regular readers will be unsurprised to learn a plan exists for all this too. But that can wait for another day ...

Wednesday, 24 July 2019

Moonee Valley Councillors Stand Up for Process on Charles Street, Ascot Vale

Photo Courtesy Moonee Valley Leader

Tuesday 24 July, 2019 - Ascot Vale residents were crying literal tears of joy last night as Councillors voted unanimously to support a motion to have the potential heritage significance of the property at 81 Charles Street, Ascot Vale re-assessed.

We cannot praise the decision of Councillors enough here, in the face of continuous and really quite baseless assertions by Council staff that the property and the street HAVE been assessed for heritage significance through the 2017 "Gap Study".

Firstly, it is quite clear that these Council gap studies are in no way thorough in the way that they are scoping properties for inclusion. Instead the heritage assessor (who literally has to survey the entire borough) drives up and down the street in their car, and properties such as 81 Charles Street, which sits behind quite a high fence and a lot of quite dense vegetation are prone to be missed.

The gap study in question, which covered Victorian, Federation and Inter-war styles, in fact concluded by suggesting over 20 properties FROM THOSE EXACT PERIODS that were submitted by the public during the process be left "for future consideration". So it's a "gap study" that just says "oh there's a gap", even while admitting the methdology being used to scope the study was definitionally inadequate.

But more importantly, when Charle Street was removed from heritage overlay HO20 (which covers most of neighbouring Monash Street, see below) in 2010, the heritage assessor David Helms, specifically recommended that Charles Street and its environs be assessed for a PRECINCT OVERLAY in its own right.

The streets that were assessed for a precinct overlay in the 2017 Gap Study are all listed in the study. Charles Street, Ascot Vale is categorically not amongst them. The street has NEVER been assessed for the precinct (or precincts) based overlay that we allege it deserves (again, see full argument below).

Moonee Valley Heritage Action has been contacted today by several members of the Moonee Valley community either present at the meeting who have asked us to express their gratitude to Councillors for agreeing to revisit the process here.

Phrases such as "faith in democracy restored", "so proud of our Councillors", "inspiring that they remain so in touch with the community" are being bandied around the community this morning, and we endorse those sentiments in their entirety.

This is why we have elected officials overseeing the planning process - real human beings with hearts and souls who are capable of dialling our community interest into the process does and should give us all hope of a better future - and one where the inherent values of our community streetscapes are preserved for generations to come.

This is also why the very existence of VCAT sitting again as another level of beaurocracy over these Councillors is so deeply wrong at the most fundamental level - but that's a story for another day.

Council staff provided their own detailed response to Cr Marshall's motion, recommending in very clear terms that it not be supported, and alleging again that the property somehow has been assessed, in spite of being able to produce no actual assessment of the site, nor any assessmnent of the street for a precinct overlay, and even while being able to nominate two properties in Charles Street that WERE directly assessed and found wanting - if Council staff can produce paperwork for those two properties not included, why ca't they do so for number 81 - provided the site has been properly assessed?

The short answer is simple - this property has never been properly assessed. Council did move to protect the property at 65 Charles Street, which is younger, less unique, without the bay window, and somewhat less in tact.

The reality is that every in-tact freestanding triple fronted proprty from the mid-1880s with a wraparound balcony, Victorian lace and bay window is significant in heritage methdology, and we now have total faith in the process that we will see protections applied to this property in no short measure.

The urgency of the assessment was pressed by Councillors last night, with staff undertaking that it should be possible to have a proper heritage assessment of the property back with Council within an approximate two week timeframe. We look forward to updating readers further.

But we encourage all our readers and supporters, if you see your local Councillor in the street this week, give them a giant hug (or not ... that would probably scare even the sternest Councillor), but at very least do stop and thank them for what they have done here for future generations.

We now look forward to this property being correctly assessed for significance, its demolition stayed its standing for the benefit of the Moonee Valley community and our urban realm for the NEXT 140 years and beyond.

Link to Moonee Valley Leader article on the case

BELOW: Details of the proposed redevelopment and previously published argument concerning the significance of Charles Street.

Under Threat - 81 Charles Street, Ascot Vale

Proposed redevelopment - Charles Street aspect

Charles Street, Ascot Vale - A Streetscape of High Heritage Value

Conducting our own assessment of the street's value, it was actually striking how good a representative streetscape over the major turn of the century styles in Australian suburban architecture Charles Street actually is.

Sure, they are not the greatest Victorians ever, sure some of them have been compromised, sure there's quite a bit of modern infill, but it was actually difficult to agree with the original assessment that the entire street wasn't worthy of a precinct overlay.

I wonder aloud if the actual heritage methodology is failing to keep up with community expectations now. I personally think the profession is too obsessed with the concept of contiguity in assessing precincts, and I certainly think we default far too often to precinct listings because they are a fraction of the work versus the application of individual overlays (which require every single property to be formally assessed), but then elevate the bar significantly for the application of an INDIVIDUAL overlay. The cause is laziness (or more generously lack of resources), but the effect is the loss of heritage that the community otherwise expects preserved.

Take a look at the following 40 properties, consider there are approximately 80 properties actually in the street, and ask yourselves, readers - "do we in fact actually have a heritage precinct here?" I find it difficult, even being as objective as I can, not to answer "yes."

And again, we'd encourage readers to cast their eyes back up to the really quite unexceptional properties in neighbouring Monash Street that ARE completely protected by Council, and ask the question "are not ALL the 40 properties cited below of greater heritage value than those ones that Council has protected?" Again, I think it's a pretty clear "yes."

Victorian-Era Properties

These all almost certainly date to the original subdivision of the street in 1885

Victorian Era Weatherboard Homes in Charles Street, Ascot Vale

Add to that list the following more unusual or atypical buildings in a largely Victorian style, again not all of which are necessarily significant, but which are definitely contributory to the overall precinct.

Victorian Era Weatherboard Homes in Charles Street, Ascot Vale
(top left is a slightly later style)

Federation-Era Properties

Subdivided in 1885, right at the END of the land boom, Charles Street would have developed over the coming twenty odd years, and thus a large number of the remnant original properties show the transition from Victorian into more Federation-influenced styles. Again, I have always felt that as arguably the only truly iconic and unique indigenous architectural style Australia will ever know, we need to make sure that we preserve these buildings within our streetscapes, yet these buildings are probably more usually under threat than their Victorian counterparts, which tend to present as a more "obvious" heritage form.

Federation Era Weatherboard Homes in Charles Street, Ascot Vale

Federation Era Weatherboard Homes in Charles Street, Ascot Vale
The top two photos are the same property

Californian Bungalows

Charles street is home to some excellent, large and highly typical examples of the Californian bungalow style, many of which although unprotected are currently under renovation or recently so. I find it telling that the owners of these buildings can recognise their obvious heritage worth in seeking to preserve their heritage character through their renovation. The pity is that neither the owners of 81 Charles Street, nor the staff providing advice to Councillors appear possessed of the same faculties. The two neighbouring ones shown top left below form a nice little precinct in their own right.

Californian Bungalow Style Homes in Charles Street, Ascot Vale
(OK bottom left is sort of Federation-y but I needed to group these in fours)

Inter/post-war Styles

There is even the following small pocket of interesting variants on cream brick triple front, all side by side at the Maribyrnong end of the street, which I would argue would well be worthy of a precinct overlay in their own right.

Neighbouring Triple Front Cream Brick Style Homes in Charles Street, Ascot Vale

The following properties are either compromised originals, or perhaps even original interwar, but either way I'd argue without being individually significant, they would be considered contributory to the precincts they adjoin or are part of.

Possibly Significant Interwar Homes in Charles Street, Ascot Vale

The argument is not necessarily that all the above properties would be found individually significant, but I don't see how it could possibly be blanket argued that none of them would be, and I would strongly argue that there are enough such properties to warrant devoting the resources to a proper assessment.

Consider also, that if you have even 2 neighbouring properties, you have met the threshold for a precinct overlay. So to the above selection add the following clearly stylistically contiguous groups, and once again the basis on which the precinct overlay was removed wholus bolus from the entire streetscape just seems like the path of least resistance rather than a valid heritage assessment.

Potential Precinct Candidate Homes in Charles Street, Ascot Vale
(see also Californian Bungalow pair above)

Consider also exactly how many of the above properties are in archetypal Australian suburban weatherboard form and across the crucial styles and periods in Australian domestic architecture - there's barely an entirely brick structure anywhere in the street. Again, I find it very difficult to argue that this ISN'T a significant heritage precinct, and that it ISN'T worth preserving AS A STREETSCAPE.

So, in summary again, we have 40 properties out of approximately 80 sites in Charles Street that would appear to be realistic candidates for potential precinct or individual listings, and I think it becomes clear that the methodology which Council has applied here has not been rigorous enough, and to an extent that leads us to question the validity of removing the entire overlay in the first place.

Regardless, there is a clear argument, given the volume of properties and the likelihood of many being found significant and possibly warranting smaller precincts in their own right that we feel it is now vital that Council moves to have this really quite valuable and exemplary streetscape properly assessed, and we feel the community would expect no less from the Councillors whom they have elected to stand up for the character of their neighbourhood.

It's disappointing that we've supposedly now been through a process of conducting "gap surveys" across most of these major periods and some of the more glaring omissions (of which 81 Charles Street seems the most significant), and this speaks again to the inadequate resources that Councils are actually able to allocate to heritage. The studies seem inadequate in both scope and methodology for ensuring they are comprehensive, and they take too long to complete, resulting in the loss of significant properties while we wait for the gap studies to report, but again that topic is really for another day.

What Can You Do To Help?

APPENDIX A

Statement of Non-Heritage Objections to the Proposed Development at 81 Charles Street, Ascot Vale

Out of Character for Neighborhood – Design and layout issues
The scale and siting of the proposed development is not considered to respond appropriately to the character of the area. As such, the proposal fails to achieve relevant policy objectives at Clause 32.08 (General Residential - Neighbourhood Character objectives) and fails to comply with 55.02 Standard B1 (Neighbourhood Character) of Clause 55.02. In order to respond more appropriately to the traditional, single storey streetscape the scale of the proposal needs to be reduced and the first floor element needs to be recessive. The height of the development along with roof pitch is too dominant in this traditional, single storey streetscape of the General residential Zone.

The length of the proposed wall on the northern boundary does not comply with the requirements of Standard B18 (Walls on boundaries) of Clause 55.04. Standard B11 provides for a maximum length of 17.55 metres, where 25.300m has been proposed.

As demonstrated on TPA06 the proposal does not comply with Standard B17 (Side and rear setbacks) of Clause 55.04. The extent of variation sought should not be considered to be appropriate in this neighbourhood character context. Whilst we understand the adjoining property located in MUZ presents a double storey wall on boundary. The non-compliance in this proposal adds excessive visual bulk to surrounding properties.

The design detail of the proposed development, including the first-floor balcony, the extent of glazing (i.e. the solid:void ratio) to the front façade, is not in keeping with the GRZ character of the area and does not comply with Standard B31 (Design detail) of Clause 55.06. Further, while the incorporation of a pitched roof element picks up on the traditional hips seen in the street, it is considered that the proposed skillion roofs exacerbate the height of the development and should not be seen as appropriate. We strongly recommend council to revisit the design detail of the dwelling, in order to provide a more respectful response to the GRZ existing streetscape and adjoining heritage overlay.

The design siting & design of the development does not respond appropriately to Standard B10 (Energy Efficiency Objective) of Clause 55.03 and file to comply with Standard B29 (solar access to open space objective) Clause 55.05. The development has not be designed / orientated to make appropriate use of solar energy, living areas are locate to the south. Private opened space are considered to be south facing and does not comply with the solar access setback.(2+0.9h) where ‘H is the height of the wall. Taking the lowest point of the pitch 6.94m shows the first floor should have a rear setback form the garages of 8.46m. Taking the high-test point of the pitch 8.5m shows the first floor should have a first floor setback of 9.65. Both of these heights fail to comply and clearly show why 3 townhouses in this area is an overdevelopment of the site.

Characteristics of General residential zone area

Single storey dwelling.
Symmetrical pitched roof.
Separation between dwellings.
Proposed development
Sitting and layout issues.
Cheap lightweight materials that are not consistent with the area.
Skillion roofs not consistent with area.
Height not constant with area.
3 townhouses with no separation not constant with GRZ.
Boundary to Boundary Garage construction not constant with area.
Visually dominating especially when it adjoins a Heritage interface
Top heavy design that does not present large recess to first floor.
Rear elevation present large double storey sheer walls. First floor again should be recessed in particular when this elevation adjoins heritage properties.

Increased Traffic and Parking Congestion
81 Charles Street is situated on a full clearway zone for public traffic and substantial PTV bus route 472 (every 15 minutes) and chartered school bus movement (both at front of 81 Charles Street and side at Progress Street).

This development will cause increased traffic congestion in Chauvel, Monash, Charles and Progress Streets impeding my access to my private enjoyment of my property;

There is no parking in the Progress Street clearway for this substantial development, and surrounding streets are already fully parked. Plans suggest garages at rear of the proposed development will house 2 cars each, however as the minimum size of the proposed garages have extremely tight clearance, together with associated guest parking requirements for this development, will increase further burden on already congested local on-street parking;

Traffic has been steadily increasing in Progress and Charles Streets over the past 3 years due to a substantial increase in Royal Melbourne Showgrounds and Flemington Victorian Racing Club events (inc concerts etc) without traffic management plans, Traffic and parking often congests for hours without movement in Charles and Progress streets during event periods preventing entry/exit to my home;

81 Charles Street development has not supplied a proposed traffic management plan for the proposed build on a full clearway adjacent to a public bus stop.

Loss of Vegetation and Impact to Native Fauna
81 Charles Street is currently fully vegetated with a significant number of mature native trees, supported by European vegetation such as the mature Jacaranda nature-strip tree – the single nature strip tree in Progress Street.

The 81 Charles Street development proposal is to completely remove all existing mature trees causing a significant impact on neighborhood character, including the landscape and environmental quality of Ascot Vale, which is already significantly suffering the heat effect of tree removal and a lack of mature trees. This development is detrimental to Moonee Valley City Council tree canopy coverage plans for Ascot Vale;

The proposal for removing these mature trees will dislocate at least 6 species of native birds using the trees to nest, roost and as a food source. It will also dislocate families of protected ringtail possums residing in these mature trees.

There is no detailed landscaping plan supplied with the proposed 81 Charles Street development.

Issues During Proposed Building of this Development
How do 81 Charles Street P/L propose to build on a high traffic clearway with bus traffic every 15 minutes and a lane way that is in use 24/7? Are PTC going to reroute buses? What is the traffic management plan proposed for this development build?

Where will building materials be sited for this development given it’s a full clearway and the development is proposed to be built to all boundaries?

Monday, 24 June 2019

Moonee Valley Council Drops the Ball on Heritage - The Sorry Tale of Charles Street, Ascot Vale

Moonee Valley Hertage Activists Stand in Defence of Charles Street, Ascot Vale
photo: Moonee Valley Leader

UPDATE - Moonee Valley Councillors have proudly stood up for process and the community, voting unanimously to have this house properly assessed for heritage significance, but the battle is FAR FROM OVER.

It has since emerged that the Town Planning professional who is proposing these townhouses has extensive links to Moonee Valley Planning Department - having performed training for MVCC Planning staff through his training company in 2017, and as recently as July 2019 having provided an extensive "Evidence Statement" for Moonee Valley Council supporting its Planning Scheme amendment c193moon, which is based on Council's long-term MV2040 strategy.

Although he declares himself to be a property owner in the municipality on p.38 of the document, he does NOT declare that he has a currently pending planning application before Council. He also recently gave evidence based on his submission in support of the proposed scheme at a panel hearing of public submissions based on the changes.

Furthermore, Council's Principal Statutory Planner worked for his company, Glossop Town Planning from 2013-16, immediately before commencing work at Moonee Valley Council. We do not allege any direct malfeasance or abuse of process to date, but we believe it is vital that the community now speaks as one in asking Council to ensure the remainder of the process is completely above board.

PLEASE HELP BY SIGNING THE PETITION TO COUNCIL

The property owner was granted "adverse possession" by Council of what was previously part of a public laneway behind the property, enabling him to facilitate this development proposal, and Council has been curiously assertive throughout our lobbying activities that a property for which it has no paperwork of any heritage assessment ever being performed definitely has no heritage significance.

We now await the report of the independent heritage assessor, but it's important Council hears the community's concern that NOTHING happen to this property through this process, that it remains at arms length and unbiased throughout the remainder of the process, and that it LIFTS ITS GAME radically in terms of its efforts to preserve the community's treasured heritage streetscaes.

PLEASE HELP BY SIGNING THE PETITION TO COUNCIL

The full detail for interested readers follows:
Those who have been following the narrative of late from the Bloodied Wombat and Moonee Valley Heritage Action will be familiar with the argument - our suburban Councils are simply not up to the job of managing and maintaining our heritage inventory, as Melbourne experiences the largest ever development wave in the city's history.

This is the topic of a forthcoming blog post, as the time has come for the heritage community to stand up and demand that the power for nominating significant properties to receive heritage overlays under the Melbourne Planning Scheme be taken out of the hands of councils, and handed to a central statewide body - which in turn needs to be resourced to bring the statewide heritage inventory up to date across all major periods. But more on that to come.

Today, I want to consider just one case study - the application of heritage controls in Charles Street, Ascot Vale under the auspices of Moonee Valley City Council, and in particular the current threat to what is arguably the most significant heritage property in the street - number 81 Charles Street, which now faces demolition owing to past Council failures.

Under Threat - 81 Charles Street, Ascot Vale

81 Charles Street - Nobody in Charge

The significance of number 81 Charles Street can scarcely be in question - whether you are familiar with heritage methodology or not. It's a triple fronted Victorian weatherboard, of exemplary scale, form and in-tactness.

While I'd stop just short of calling it a "mansion" (a much abused term in heritage circles), it's an extremely large four bedroom property on a very sizeable corner block, dating to around the time of original subdivision of the street within what was originally known as the Whiskey Hill precinct, which makes it circa 1885 in terms of its build date.

CLEARLY significant - 81 Charles Street, Ascot Vale

The large wraparound verandah and front bay window are relatively unusual for the period, elevating the property above the standard the typical double fronted Victorian weatherboard, and of course the standard in Moonee Valley at least is that most Victorian weatherboards of that lesser typology actually do have heritage protection. Where is the consistency?

The current owners purchased the property in August 2017 for $1.7m, and have now applied to demolish the building in order to replace it with a proposed subdivided townhouse development, no doubt with the prospect of a large financial windfall awaiting them, with the three townhouses expected to sell for $1.2m+ each, the mathematics is fairly unequivocal.

Proposed redevelopment - Charles Street aspect

Council has received in excess of 80 objections to the proposal - on several significant grounds other than heritage. See Appendix A at the foot of this blog for a detailed summary of many of the bases of those objections.

Proposed redevelopment - Progress/Charles Street aspect

81 Charles Street - current Progress Street aspect

The Ascot Vale land that forms Charles Street today was originally owned by early settler George Newsom, who sold it off as the Myross Estate to Mt Charles Brown Fisher and his brother Hurtle, from where they successfully bred thoroughbred horses for their "Maribyrnong Stud"until selling the land for housing in 1885. The current house was built on the site between 1885 and 1890 as "Amboyne", at what was originally number 99, but which was changed to 81 in 1926. Its original occupant was a tenant - one Edward J. McCheane, whose profession was given in the electoral rolls as simply "clerk" (historical information courtesy Essendon Historical Society).

The History - How Moonee Valley Council Dropped the Ball

The saddest chapter of all in this really quite maudlin tale is ... wait for it ... Council actually did have a heritage overlay on this property up until 2013, when HERITAGE PROTECTION WAS REMOVED.

The virtual entirety of this (southern) side Charles Street from numbers 5-127, as well as 6-38 on the northern side was originally included within Heritage Overlay HO20, which also covers Monash Street, running parallel to the south of Charles Street and surrounding streets down to Langs Road, where HO20 still applies to this day.

The overlay also covered properties in Kingston Avenue - which connects Charles and Monash at the Maribyrnong River end of the street. On inspection, we agree that the properties in Kingston Avenue should certainly have been removed from the overlay and are of no value in heritage terms, but the same in no way applies in Charles Street itself.

At Moonee Valley Heritage Action, we find the assertion that the properties in Monash Street are significant and contiguous such that they warrant a precinct overlay but the same case does not apply in Charles Street is extremely tenuous at best.

According to Moonee Valley Council, these properties in Monash Street are significant,
but a triple fronted weatherboard with wraparound verandah and bay windows dating to the 1880s in the next street is not.
REALLY??

All one has to do is take a short walk to the end of Progress Street. Consider the above two significantly altered and non-representative properties are 100% protected from demolition, but neither 81 Charles Street, nor any of the other properties that we will examine in detail below have the slightest form of protection. Even the most untrained and skeptical of eyes would be driven to ask again "where is the consistency here?"

Outcomes Out of Step With the Community

What is asserted is that Councils are simply taking the path of least resistance in terms of the application and assessment of heritage planning controls resulting in outcomes that are completely out of step with community expectations.

What imperative drove the need to remove all of the properties in Charles Street, including number 81 and those that we will look at below? Was Council captured in some way by some vested interest to give them the impetus to step OUTSIDE EXPECTED COMMUNITY STANDARDS and give effect to the thesis that "it's perfectly OK for us as a Council to leave perfectly in tact and obviously significant properties from the 1880s entirely unprotected and open to demolition".

When one drills deeper into the records at Moonee Valley, it becomes easy to see how Councillors would have voted for this. Councillors are not necessarily heritage experts, much as some Councillors within Moonee Valley do take an active and commendable interest in the area.

In 2010, Council conducted a "Review of Heritage Precincts", this being well in advance of this group being formed I don't have information on what the full effect of that review was, but it appears. at least judging by this case, to have been an exercise in aggressively finding properties to REMOVE from protection.

Again, this is out of step with community expectations. I believe it's essential if we're going to sustain the current levels of migration that are basically the sole driver of growth in our economy at present, that the community's concerns about the potential negative impacts of the changes that come with that are aggressively met.

So it's important in public policy terms that the wider community's valid fears about the destruction of their treasured neighbourhood character are assuaged. We absolutely need more, stronger and wider heritage protections applied in our suburbs, and this is why it's so important, if councils are going to fail at the task, that another arm of government steps up.

Standard Heritage Methodology Betrayed

Council Officers provided a report to Council based on the findings of the Review, as well as convening a panel to adjudicate on its recommendations. The Report found that;

Essentially, what is now contained in HO20 comprises two separate and quite distinct precincts with different patterns of historical development and built form.

Once more for emphasis - two separate and quite distinct precincts. A statement which contains the tacit acknowledgement that Charles Street in fact DOES constitute a unique precinct in its own right (albeit contradictory to other statements in the Report). Yet Council officers have recommended the excision of the MORE HISTORICAL of the two precincts. That's perfectly valid ONLY if that precinct is then properly assessed for its own intrinsic value.

The report then went on to recommend a thematic study of Charles and its surrounding streets to the north be conducted to assess the merits of a separate precinct overlay, but there is no evidence that this was ever undertaken, and appears to have been completely forgotten.

The report goes on to state;

It is suggested that, until more detailed work is carried out, applications for Charles Street may be treated on their merits using the additional historical and descriptive information contained in this report.

Finally, it is noted that should Council decide to proceed with removal of Charles Street from HO20 there are no places that would be individually significant (and therefore worthy of retention in the HO).

This is completely flabbergasting on two fronts. Firstly, Councillors are completely powerless, by all precedent in planning law, to use anything as nebulous as historical research concerning a subject site as any basis for assessing any planning permit application for that site in the absence of an actual heritage overlay. And any Council Planning officer with any sound grasp of their practice ought to know that backwards.

Secondly, a bald-faced statement to the effect of "it's OK there are no significant properties in the street", in the very self same report that said further thematic work needed to be undertaken in order to determine that very same question, and with absolutely no evidence presented that any of the subject properties has actually received any individual such assessment is nothing short of a complete abrogation of all duties, and again one needs to question whether the author of this report is professionally qualified to be doing what they are doing, given the importance of the issue to the community.

The report also asserts that;

There are streets in the vicinity of Charles Street that formed part of the same nineteenth century subdivision that have as good, if not better, groups of nineteenth and inter-war housing.

Once again, there is a false methodology at work here - one that has no valid basis in heritage practice. Heritage is NOT a relative exercise. Each potential precinct and site needs to be assessed on its own merits. The principle that "there are better examples in the next street" is absolutely NOT a valid basis for not applying controls in any given locality. It's not even a principle that should be entertained - there are no such things as quotas for particular typologies or the volume of heritage listings in any given geography (although it's worth noting that this is a principle that VCAT has on more than one occasion completely undemocratically and in the absence of any due process applied elsewhere in the past, that's a much larger and very different topic).

Again, the entire report represents a profoundly disappointing abrogation of responsibility by the very people on whose effective discharge of that responsibility we, the community, rely.

Try telling the residents of Charles street (many of whom are busy assiduously and sympathetically caring for their own treasured heritage properties completely absent of any law forcing them to do so) why their beloved heritage streetscape is fair game to be trashed by developers and unsympathetic property owners just because the next street over might be a little bit nicer still.

But we can see how Councillors may have quite reasonably wound up at this point based on the content of that report, as they can't be expected to go out and, say in this instance, survey the entirety of Charles Street by themselves. Where Councillors appear to have failed is in not following through on the recommendation for a more detailed study of the entire area of Ascot Vale in and to the north of Charles Street.

Concluding the sad and sorry tale, in 2013, the Planning Minister signed amendment C109 into law, removing 6-38 and 5-127 Charles Street and 18-24 Kingston Avenue from HO20.

Now it's important to state here that we are NOT seeking recriminations here for what has gone before. What we ARE trying to do, is to feed back into the process in a way that can improve the rigour of the methodology Council applies in future.

Most particularly, we are now asking Councillors as a matter of urgency to commission a new heritage survey of Charles Street, Ascot Vale (especially including number 81) and its adjoining side streets north to Doncaster Road - to specifically assess all potential sites (and those sites that were once deemed worthy of inclusion in an entire precinct but removed), for both individual and precinct overlays, before any more of the community's beloved streetscape is destroyed.