Save our City
4 August 2010
Melbourne Heritage Action www.melbourneheritage.org.au
A new advocacy group for Melbourne's CBD Melbourne Heritage Action provides a forum for people dedicated to preserving, protecting and promoting the ongoing use of significant heritage places such as buildings, streetscapes, laneways and interiors in Melbourne.
CEO for the Trust, Martin Purslow says: “We are very excited at the prospect of a dedicated city heritage action group, and we are very pleased to be able to provide an auspicing role and formal umbrella that will further the work of the Trust in a new and exciting way.”
Melbourne Heritage Action President Rupert Mann said that the group had formed in response to deep concern over current threats to Melbourne’s build heritage.“Like the Trust, Melbourne Heritage Action has become increasingly aware that the CBD of Melbourne, with its wealth of historic buildings and streetscapes, is under a level of redevelopment pressure not seen since the late 1960s. Recent permits reveal the level of threat that our heritage now faces, and also the great gaps in heritage protection that is provided across the CBD,” he says.
The new group will start immediately with an agenda aimed at generating pre-State election discussion of heritage issues in the city.
For more information go to www.melbourneheritage.org.au
Want to add your voice to the calls for better heritage controls in the CBD?
A number of proposals that have demolished heritage places or exceeded height limits in heritage areas in the CBD have been approved in the last three years. They have all been subject to approvals by the Minister for Planning, and permitted often without the chance for submission or Appeal.
With the apparent ease of achieving a permit for a development not normally allowed by planning restrictions, developers are increasingly ignoring long established heritage listings and height controls. Other places have been identified as having heritage value but have never been protected with heritage overlays.
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Save our City images (PDF) 145.25 kB
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Save our city letter june 2010 32.00 kB
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Windsor redevelopment |
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Hotel from southeast |
Rendering of new development (Emerald Twilight) |
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The development has won planning approval from both the Minister's office, and Heritage Victoria. The Trust has lodged an Appeal against the Minister's permit. Go to our minisite savethewindsor.com for more information, and how you can help. |
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80 Collins Street / Le Louvre |
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 and Exhibition |
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An office tower is proposed by the Queensland Investment Corporation in front of Nauru House, now known as 80 Collins Street. While the new ground level glass boxes would go some way to repair the damage left when heritage buildings were demolished in the 1970s, the tower would completely dominate the famous 'Paris End' of Collins Street. Partly supported on legs, perched above the old and new buildings, it would be built to the very edge of the street for the full height of 40+ storeys. It would especially dominate heritage buildings at its base such as the Le Louvre store (click here for the classification) and the 1867 townhouse on the corner. |
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The proposal ignores the long established principle that any large tower in Collins Street, especially at the ‘Paris End’, can only achieve true visual separation from the heritage dominated streetscape by being setback the preferred 10m from the street boundary. The principle of constructing a large new building suspended or cantilevered above a heritage building or streetscape is one that is vigorously opposed. This especially applies where the new construction hovers above the entire building or streetscape.
This proposal was announced as one of the first to be considered by the new Central City Standing Advisory Commitee , but no date has yet been set.
City Buildings unprotected
 Griffiths Tea Warehouse c1900 |
Even though Melbourne's CBD is the location of some of the most important and impressive buildings in Victoria, the range of buildings that are protected by City of Melbourne heritage controls has not been updated since 1984 - that's more than 25 years ! As a result, many buildings that most people would believe are protected are not, especially many Art Deco and Mid Centruy Modern places; but notable buildings from earlier eras have also been missed. There are even concentrations of buildings that would make excellent new heritage precincts. The attached letter outlines the issues and documents many of the unprotected places in the CBD. Letter to MCC re heritage listings 2008 (PDF) 1.57 MB
The Lord Major has responded with a promise to begin a Heritage Strategy, which is very welcome, but may take at least a year to result in any new listings. Lord Mayor response to heritage listings (PDF) 190.94 kB
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"Little Lon" group - heritage overlay protection imminent |
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 Terraces (1870)  Nathan's Warehouse (1906) and Leitrim Hotel (1888) |
July 2010 Responding to a request by the Trust that the MCC consider protecting this row of buildings, the Melbourne City Council 'Future Melbourne' committee - planning subcommittee, met on 5 July 2010, and accepted the recommendation for Heritage Overlay protection. The MCC has now asked the Minister for an interim control, and will then advertise a Planning Scheme Amendment. Given the obvious importance of this row of 19th and early 20th century buidlngs, as outlined in the report by heritage consultant Graeme Butler & Assocs commissioned by Council. heritage protection should be the end result. This would be the first heritage listing instigated by the MCC for over 20 years. February 2010 Amongst the unprotected heritage buildings in the city is this row between Bennetts Lane and Evans Place in Little Lonsdale Street near Exhibition. The streetscape is considered one of the few intact remnants of the ‘little lon’ area, Melbourne’s 19th century underbelly, peopled by society's "outcasts", the very poor, aged, infirm or criminal, and home to many brothels. The former Exploration Hotel on the corner of Evans Lane was one of the many pubs that dotted this section of town, and the pair of terraces adjacent were built as accommodation attached to the hotel and are amongst the few residential places remaining in the central city. The elaborate 1888 'Leitrim hotel' would have provided more cheap accommodation. Nathan's Warehouse on the corner of Bennetts Lane, and the other warehouse in the middle of the block (1912) were part of the transformation of the area from low-cost accommodation to light industrial uses, especially the Chinese furniture making industry. |
Spencer Street Power Station |
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 buildings and coal yard on corner of Spencer and Little Bourke  Developer's proposal |
4 August 2010 The Minister has issued a permit fort his development This follows the first meeting of the new Central City Standing Advisory Commitee on 9th July, which considered the Minister's central city planning officer's report recommending approval of the scheme with a few minor alterations. Questions were raised about the density of the 4000 apartment, four tower scheme, and the treatment of the heritage buildngs has been slightly improved. June 2010 Following the 'accidental' demolition of the only original 1896 building on the site of the former Melbourne Power Station, Victoria's first municipal electric power station, only the 1908 office block facing Spencer Street and the "Economiser' buildings remain, along with the former coal yard between them on the corner of Spencer and Little Bourke Streets. All the buildings are protected by a Heritage Overlay, but previous plans appeared to assume their demolition. The latest proposal lodged for the large power satation site, involves four apartment towers, and originally assumed the demolition of the small buildings. They were asked to consider partial retention, and the image here is the result. They simply modified the design by altering the podium, leaving the tower as was, now suspended on legs passing through the roofs of the partly dismanteld and then re-built buildings, subsuming them into the podium, and filling up the small corner area in the process. Completely building over heritage-listed buildings is something that the Trust has resisted over many years, and if this were to be approved, it would set a very bad precedent indeed. |
Equity Trustees Building |
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 Equity Chambers with proposed addtions |
July 2010 The building has been added to the Victorian Heritage Rgister. A permit is being sought from Heritage Victoria for the development. Details here. Read recent articles in The Age - an opinion piece by Greg Barns (a part-time tenant in the building) and by Jason Dowling. March 2010 We have been advised that this development for conversion into apartments will retain the existing building and all the main significant interiors, including the Art Deco lifts, though not the office interiors on the upper floors. Six levels of new apartments are to be added above the roof, and a new 18-storey section is to be added at the rear of the site. |