Following a "drive-by assessment" in 1993, recently my retired parents had their only investment property formally heritage-listed by CoS, against their will & without ANY compensation. The forced listing & consequential expropriation (theft) of their property rights has virtually cost their life savings in forgone development revenue & their health. It has also cost them tens of thousands of dollars in DA application fees to be directly lost too.
As such, it is worse than unfair & is actually theft when heritage restrictions are forced upon unwitting owners years after purchase, which is what happened in my elderly parents' case. Unfortunately for my parents, CoS' unjust heritage regulations (which are emulated by most councils in Australia) have resulted in my parents having to either sell-out below fair market value, or maintain their rundown terraces (see photos link below), riddled with rising damp & concrete cancer/cracks, at our family's sole expense. Simply put, CoS' & the NSW State Government's present heritage laws are unfair!
Research proves that it is more cost-effective to knock-down than to renovate. For example, it would cost over 1/2 a million dollars to fix the rising damp. This huge problem leads to cement render & paint, internally & externally, continually needing repair. It also results in an unhygienic musty stench within the terraces. These problems have severely impacted the rental income generated by the premises, which have no original heritage features within.
It is fundamentally inequitable & akin to communism, to expect individuals to shoulder the burden alone for the benefit of the community alone. There is no question that most of our 'genuine' (significant) heritage items must be preserved... yet if heritage is a community good which justifies an override of private property rights, than surely the cost should be borne by the community. This could be easily & inexpensively achieved by councils purchasing property they wish to heritage-list & then on-selling them with heritage orders affixed. Under the Just Terms & Acquisitions Act this would cost the community around 10% of the value of the premises.
My parents have been robbed by this unfair decision, but adding insult to injury are the inconsistencies within CoS' own planning instruments. It is illogical & inequitable to offer some constituents a bonus for retaining heritage-listed properties, but not others or my parents. This CrAzY inconsistency is partly responsible for preventing desperately needed renovations to number 44 Church Street, which is untenanted, derelict & costing my parents over $18,000 annually in holding costs.
The inconsistent & impossible nature of CoS is further illustrated by the fact that when my parents purchased their property in 1986, there were no height restriction either. This is evident by the clear precedences set on the same block as my parents with the 9 storey Centra Hotel, the 8 storey Bonds building in Church Street & 10 storey building in Brodrick Street - the later two being across the roadway. Subsequent the heritage listing, my parents have been told that two storeys is as high as they can build, in a 3 storey zone with a 4 storey building on the boundary & 9 storey building on our block!
CoS are unfair also because where an owner's land is rezoned Open Space by council, when it was previously zoned Residential - the owner is entitled to compensation at the value pertaining to the former zoning. But when CoS slaps a heritage order on a property, it greatly restricts the usage & thereby lowers the property value, yet no compensation is paid to aggrieved property owners!?
Now CoS wants to reduce the Floor Space Ratio (FSR) on the property from 2:1 when mum and dad first bought it, down to 0.8:1 which represents over a 50% reduction, with no mention of any compensation either. My parents bought the property with a legal entitlement to build up to 2 times the land size (2:1). The price they paided reflected that property right. Now Clover Moore is officiating over a council that is planning to reduce the FSR by over 50%, so that all we can build is up to 0.8 times the land size.
Also noteworthy is how CoS recently overturned a 79 year old road widening order, to preserve the terraces. Not only has this piece of hodgepodge planning resulted in the streetscape being permanently scared; it has also increased the possibility of pedestrian strike & motor vehicle accidents owing to the narrow guttered roadway. Meanwhile, intensive care ambulances on route to RPA Hospital are often caught in bottlenecked traffic on neighbouring Missenden Road. The irony for my parents is that the road widening order initially prevented them from carrying out renovations to a high standard, as council regulations back then stipulated the use of second hand materials (council wanted the property bulldozed back then)!
Furthermore & abhorrently so, when an application is made to construct buildings near any heritage-listed site, consideration must be given to the visual effects such construction will have on the listed site, & "separation" (or Vicinity Controls - the distance between the two sites) is the name given to this regulation. What makes this regulation of forcing greater separation between heritage buildings & new buildings ludicrous, is the hypocrisy of "Facadism" (see example below), which ironically can allow a 50 storey building to be built 'on top' of a heritage item, yet demand metres of separation 'behind' a heritage building (as with my parents' site)???
Compounding the problem further is how heritage-listing affects neighbouring properties too. For example, if you wanted to build a new fence, pergola or erect a simple carport, but your neighbour's property was recently heritage-listed, you may be forced to acquire a costly Heritage Impact Statement. You then run the risk of having your Development Application refused by council unless you blend with your neighbours old structure, trapping you in an old distasteful streetscape timewarp. Of course you could challenge your council/neighbour in the Land & Environment Courts, but win, lose or draw that would cost thousands too. It's a wonder CoS hasn't demanded that only vintage cars be parked in heritage driveways!
Interestingly, one doesn't have to look much further than the rear of Sydney Town Hall to see that separation was never an issue for CoS' administration tower (obviously one rule for CoS & a separate rule for others - very inconsistent). And now CoS even considers listing 30 year old ugly office blocks...
However, old & new can coexist happily together as demonstrated in Europe (see Tower Bridge & the ultra modern City Hall in London), where 'genuine' heritage sites, often hundreds if not thousands of years old, have modern architecture often built alongside them. Scots Church on the corner of Margaret & York in Sydney is a great example too (see below). Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it would appear that most Heritage Fascists can only see the speck in others eyes when it comes to symbiosis between old & new.
My parents have been robbed & simply cannot afford to build or even renovate now. Heritage laws were never intended to stop the reasonable development of properties, yet here is another example amongst thousands where heritage-listing has unreasonably restricted development in a 'mixed use zone' & slashed the value of the property. Even the NSW Valuer General (VG), NSW Land and Environment Court, Queensland VG along with private owners know that heritage-listings reduce property values. The contrast between what could once be built prior listing & what can now be built post-listing is stark, & there is ample evidence to prove so.
CoS' existing regulations trample on top of property rights & IRONICALLY, actually encourage the preemptive or post-listing destruction of 'genuine' heritage items! Additionally, lopsided heritage regulations are often misused by certain political groups to stop quality development & impede progress. But worst of all, it could happen to your own family house, even if it is an asbestos ridden fibro dump. Interestingly, CoS' inconsistent codes conflict between asbestos needing to be disposed of & heritage needing to be retained. They often also turn a blind eye to the Building Code of Australia (BCA), Building Sustainability Index (BASIX), OH&S & disability requirements to preserve heritage...
According to Alan Anderson, a leading heritage lawyer, "Our present model of heritage preservation, based upon government regulation & the legalised theft of property rights, imposes hidden costs through lost development opportunities. It is time to adopt a model based on voluntarism & respect for property rights, under which the cost of heritage preservation is transparently determined & borne by the community."
To paraphrase the Productivity Commissioner, property owners who can make a case of undue hardship or loss due to heritage-listing should be able to appeal, to either have the listing removed or be fairly compensated if the listing is to stand. Councils should satisfy themselves that a property really is of significant heritage value, that it is worth preserving through listing given the likely costs, & that any excessive costs arising will be borne by the public who benefit from the listing, not by the hapless owner.
Please help restore justice & fairness by sending a brief email to the Mayor of CoS Clover Moore, registering your disapproval of their current unfair & unethical heritage regulations (see left of page). This will actually help preserve 'genuine' heritage items & engender some fairness/equity back into the system (win-win).
Pictures
Confrence Paper
People
