Essendon house may be demolished due to heritage protection loophole
This 81-year-old house in Essendon was flagged for heritage protection — until a loophole allowed its owners to remove its historic features. See what it looks like now.
North West
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AN 81-year-old home flagged as having significant historical value may be demolished after the owners modified it before heritage protections could be enforced.
Moonee Valley councillors say a loophole in the way historic buildings are protected allowed the owners of a house in Glass St, Essendon, to significantly modify the historic features of their house before a planned assessment so that it no longer qualified for permanent heritage protections.
Interim heritage protections had been requested for the property in April after the owners applied for a permit to demolish it.
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The demolition permit was rejected because officers identified the property as having potential heritage significance in the council’s 2014 Heritage Gap Study.
But “significant alterations” were made to the house, yard and fence of the property before the controls were put in place by Planning Minister Richard Wynne in December.
The works included painting the exterior, and removing window shutters and leadlight windows.
All were completed legally and the Leader is not suggesting the owners have broken any laws.
Council officers last week recommended abandoning the interim protections because the property’s heritage value was no longer intact.
But councillors voted to keep the protections in place until April 30 and asked officers to investigate how much it would cost to restore the property. They feared the property’s demolition would set a precedent for heritage protections in the municipality.
Cr Samantha Byrne said it was disappointing but feared nothing could be done as the changes were made legally.
“I’m definitely not condoning anything, but at the end of the day the people who own the property are allowed to do what they want,” she said.
“I’m not really sure how we can say to someone who owns a property ‘you haven’t done anything unlawful, but we are going to get a quote on how much it will cost to clean up your property because it potentially had heritage value prior to your renovations’.”
Deputy Mayor John Sipek said the council needed to closely consider its decision.
“I don’t want to set a precedent so that every other heritage property gets challenged and we have to get retrospective reports on what the property looked like 20 or 10 years ago,” he said.
Moonee Valley Heritage Action president Adam Ford said he was disappointed the owners had modified the historic property.
Leader tried contacting the homeowners on multiple occasions but they could not be reached for comment.
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