Ballarat heritage advocates fear loss of city’s historical landscape and character
Ballarat is famed for its Victoria-era heritage, but locals feel “powerless” to influence state government decisions that could change the look of the city — and not for the better.
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Residents of one of the state’s most significant and historic cities — once known as “the Paris of the day” — say they are being “steamrolled “ by the state government and fear new developments will kill its historical character and landscape.
Several changes are planned or underway in Ballarat, a city awash with gold rush heritage likely to be added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list.
Yet with Ballarat positioned to transform in coming years, locals are exasperated by a sense of being “powerless” under the thumb of a bureaucracy that has its own priorities.
City planning
Urban planning is continuously contentious in Ballarat, especially when it comes to building heights and the city’s changing skyline amid a booming population.
Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny, who has the power to bypass local processes, recently approved an eight-storey residential building and a seven-storey commercial building on Humffray St.
The plans were first ticked off by the City of Ballarat, and were then challenged by objectors at VCAT before getting “called in” by Ms Kilkenny and assessed by a government committee, which recommended granting the permit after all.
“We know homes don’t get built when they’re held up in VCAT,” a state government spokesman said.
“That’s why we’ve stepped in to ensure more than 74 homes can be built right in the heart of Ballarat, along with new office spaces, shops and restaurants.”
Development of the controversial GovHub on Lydiard St also skipped over local planning rules, and the resulting edifice has been used to help justify an adjoining office building on Mair St.
Ballarat Heritage Watch managed to argue about those plans in VCAT, reducing the building’s height by roughly a storey.
But even relative successes for such groups can be unsatisfactory, the group’s president Stuart Kelly said.
“It’s an improvement,” he said.
“We had not a win, but an improvement, and that permit has not been issued.
“ … I think basically the locals feel that they’ve been steamrolled and I think there’s a lot of doubt now of where to go.
“It’s getting more difficult for the general public to have a say.”
At a recent Ballarat council meeting, an application for a five-storey building on Doveton St was approved, which, under various clauses of the city’s planning controls, was exempt from public notice.
The city is also part-way through making changes to its planning scheme to potentially allow buildings at Bridge Mall, which looks westward up Ballarat’s iconic Sturt St, to reach as high as 24m rather than a maximum of 10.5m.
Heritage proponents are varied in their opinions about any particular development, but in general, Mr Kelly said he preferred “human-sized buildings” so “you don’t have to look straight up to see the sky”.
“In places like Paris and Rome, mostly they’ve separated the modern buildings to areas outside what used to be the central CBD,” he said.
He suggested higher buildings would be appropriate in Ballarat on, for example, parts of Creswick Rd and Learmonth Rd.
On the other hand, Committee for Ballarat chief executive Michael Poulton said housing supply, diversity, and affordability were “critical” to the region’s future.
He called the Humffray St development “fantastic”.
“The debate about height is the wrong debate,” he said.
“The debate has to be had about the quality of development and the purpose of the development.
“So a three-storey building can be ugly and not suit a purpose.
“An eight-storey building that is well designed and suits the purpose and fits the purpose is a really good outcome.
“So we would argue that it’s not about height: height is too restrictive and it’s too much of a blunt instrument.”
Mr Poulton approved of the planning minister’s power when Ballarat’s “planning constraints” were an obstacle to growth.
“The community does need to have an opportunity to have its say, but that has to be balanced with what is the overall good for the broader community, the region in itself,” he said.
“We need to find dwellings for people to live in; we need people to come to our town to fill the jobs that are in the town – they need to live somewhere.
“If that means that those issues need to be resolved at a higher level with the state government, we’re comfortable with that.
“We think there is too much opportunity for good planning applications to be held up by small interest groups.”
In February, the state government announced that if local councils did not try to meet the government’s housing targets – which are nearly 47,000 in Ballarat by the year 2051 – “they’ll lose their planning powers”.
It is also going to rewrite the 1987 Planning and Environment Act to “reduce planning permit delays and blockages”.
Wendouree state Labor MP Juliana Addison said Ballarat’s 19th century architecture was extremely significant, and the city was “the Paris of the day” in the mid-1800s.
But she said that history could be incorporated into modernity.
“I don’t buy into this, that you can’t have both,” she said.
“Because you can, and we really need to protect the important buildings that tell our foundation story, but also make sure that we have buildings and investment that reflect the city that we are, the ambitious city we are – to grow bigger, to have great industry, to have great jobs, and be a great place to live.”
Ballarat mayor Tracey Hargreaves said it was about “trying to find the balance of what works specific to a site”
“We need to do both,” she said.
“We need to protect heritage but we also need to be encouraging development throughout Ballarat, including the CBD.”
Railway station
Works planned at Ballarat’s 1860s railway station have caused heritage advocates to clash with a bureaucracy they say all but ignores their input.
Forthcoming state government additions to the train station include a pedestrian overpass and lift, new ramp and stairs, and lighting improvements to address complaints about wheelchair access across the tracks.
While acknowledging the need for accessibility, few have praised the designs; Ballarat’s council even sent a letter to Heritage Victoria seeking changes to the initial plans.
The overpass emerged as a major sticking point: following criticism, the blocky structure’s design was revised so that it had a reduced height, was made of different materials, was silver and grey instead of stark white, and had girders referencing those inside the station.
There will now also be balconies included for the sake of sightseeing.
But despite Ballarat Railway Station’s historical importance, artist’s impressions indicate the metallic overpass will appear essentially identical to bridges at the Bacchus Marsh, Ballan, and Wendouree train stations.
At a Ballarat council meeting on February 26, resident Sharon Upham complained that she was not given the opportunity to provide feedback at information sessions once the government agreed to minor alterations of the overpass.
She called the whole design process “slapdash” and accused the state government of “not being democratic” and “taking away the democratic right of this [local] layer of government”.
A community engagement report about the station from late 2024 showed that heritage considerations were the most important aspect to survey respondents, with accessibility the second priority, and improved commuter safety the third.
Yet objectors to the government’s plans were left with the impression the whole scheme was a fait accompli and ignored those preferences.
Save Our Station president Gerald Jenzen said suggestions an underpass be built instead of the overpass were met with “vague” denials.
“The government has made a decision and they come then to talk to us to try and convince us by way of consultation that that’s the answer and that we agree with it,” he said.
“We’re the last cog in the wheel in the decision-making process.
“We’re powerless.”
Ballarat Heritage Watch president Stuart Kelly said that rather than being made to suit each train station, government designs were applied uniformly, with slight changes, across the state.
“I sent an email to the woman who was leading the consultation saying how I felt used,” Mr Kelly said.
“That they would say we’ve been in consultation with the heritage people – it’s ridiculous.”
Member organisation Committee for Ballarat promotes the city’s development and liveability amid continued population growth.
Its chief executive Michael Poulton said “something needed to change” at the station to improve accessibility, and emphasised cost-effectiveness as a primary consideration.
Mr Poulton said some heritage features needed protection, others had to evolve, and some “should be gone”.
“Are there alternatives?” he asked about the planned train station overpass.
“Well, yeah there are, and a tunnel might have been one of those alternatives, but it’s very difficult to build a tunnel under an existing railway station.
“So it really is a little bit about compromise, notwithstanding the fact that we’re trying to solve the problem – which is the lack of accessibility to the railway station.”
Although in favour of the state government’s plans, he said the overpass was a “cut and paste job” as many government developments were.
But he felt the community had had its say about the station and that questions of design would always stoke debate.
“The notion that what we like versus what we don’t like, what has artistic value and what is appreciated is always going to be contentious,” Mr Poulton said.
“We’ve had nothing better than that than the GovHub building in Ballarat, which is in some eyes a beautiful contemporary style building, in other eyes a blight on our landscape.
“It does not change the fact that we’ve got a beautiful heritage building in the station.
“The overpass is an addition to that which provides a level of accessibility which is crucial for the rest of our community.”
Wendouree state Labor MP Juliana Addison said the overpass had to meet 21st century disability requirements and could not realistically be in a 19th century style.
She said an underpass would have presented issues of safety for lone travellers and encourage anti-social behaviour more than an overpass.
Grampians disAbility Advocacy advisory group member Rebecca Paton said she felt the government had listened to feedback about the initial designs, which were “much more cookie cutter” than the final iteration.
“It’s not perfect in terms of access and it’s not perfect in terms of heritage, but it’s always going to be a compromise,” she said.
“The fact is it’s not a museum - it’s a transport hub, and it’s a big transport hub.”
Ms Paton said better access would mean increased tourism to Ballarat, and she agreed there were safety and flooding problems with underpasses.
“People with disabilities care about heritage as well,” she said.
“It’s all very nice to have heritage things .. but if those people with disabilities can’t get anywhere near the heritage then why would they care about it?”
Ms Hargreaves said the plans were a “massive improvement” and “long overdue” in terms of accessibility.
“But I do still agree that we would have liked to have seen designs that were a bit more sympathetic to the heritage of the area and a little bit more in keeping with the heritage of the station,” she said.
Heritage gates
A few dozen metres away from the construction site at the station itself is the location of another controversy.
In 2020, a runaway train crashed through Ballarat’s 145-year-old interlocking level crossing gates.
The opportunity was taken to replace the heritage gates with more standard boom gates, with no option available to residents to repair the older system.
Ballarat’s council objected, expressing a “strong preference” for the former gate system’s repair – unless safety was compromised.
It was indeed safety that authorities cited – namely the risk of the of the gates becoming “projectiles” should a train plough through them again – in disallowing the gates’ functional reinstatement.
Although the gates themselves were not at fault, the government said any “upgrade” to a level crossing requires adherence to the “highest possible” safety standard – guidelines the swinging gates did not meet.
Heritage Victoria – which is also part of the Transport Department – recently issued a permit for the gates’ return as only a “static display”.
Mr Jenzen said the announcement “took no account of the heritage technological uniqueness of the gates, which were the last of their type in Australia”.
He said authorities gave “no explanations as to why the gates were able to remain in situ for the last 20 years” if they were so dangerous.
“The gates, if they were operated, would be a one-off, and the railways don’t want anything that’s a one-off,” he said.
“That’s why boom gates are favoured, because they’ve got them everywhere.
“If someone hits a boom gate they can go to the store and replace it almost immediately, and the accident records for boom gates are not very good either.”
Ms Addison said the old gates would have been removed eventually in favour of a more modern system even if the crash had not occurred, particularly given the speed and frequency of contemporary trains.
She said passenger safety was her highest priority – as a result of the 2020 crash, one of two passengers on board required hospitalisation, and the driver and conductor suffered minor injuries.
“As important as the gates are to Ballarat’s heritage, passenger safety needs to be prioritised to ensure that passengers are safe within Ballarat to catch the train to and from Melbourne,” she said.
Heritage Victoria’s permit can be appealed within a certain timeframe - an action Ballarat’s council is still considering.
“We’re now looking at the stage of, does Council mount an appeal against that decision or not,” Ms Hargreaves said.
“It’s our job really to balance whether it would be an appropriate use of ratepayer money to pay for that and it’s a balancing of the likelihood of success of that as well for us.”
It is expected there will be discussion of the level crossing at the council’s next meeting.
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