By Megan Gorrey
The City of Sydney is considering heritage protection for a cluster of modernist apartment buildings in the inner east despite a backlash from owners in one block who argue it will curtail their rights and make their properties harder to sell.
The council wants to add nine buildings – including several designed by acclaimed architect Harry Seidler – to the heritage list following a push from councillors, residents and community groups.
They are The Gateway and Gemini buildings in Potts Point; Oceana, St Ursula, Ithaca Gardens and Bayview in Elizabeth Bay; and Aquarius, Roslyn Gardens and 1-5 Clement Street in Rushcutters Bay.
The Gateway and Gemini buildings in Potts Point, and Roslyn Gardens in Rushcutters Bay, are under consideration for heritage listing.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Architect Philip Thalis, a former City of Sydney councillor, said the boxy brick structures weren’t only the best examples of post-war unit blocks in the inner east, Greater Sydney or NSW: “They’re, in fact, the best apartment buildings in Australia from this era.”
Residents in Ithaca Gardens, which is also under consideration for state heritage listing, are worried the protections would make it harder to proceed with necessary upgrades to their apartments.
Owner Jim Carroll said: “The overwhelming majority of owners opposed to listing feel it will impose time-delaying, costly and unnecessary restraints, curtailing the rights of those who own units.”
The stoush between apartment owners and the council over heritage listing represents a new frontier in the debate about balancing progress with preserving Sydney’s modernist architecture.
Councillors will debate the changes to planning controls that would add the buildings, which are all within existing heritage conservation areas, to the local heritage list at a meeting on Monday night.
The council wants to place the proposal to list the buildings on exhibition for public feedback early next year before hopefully introducing changes to its local environment plan (LEP) in October.
Since 2019, council papers said there has been “considerable interest” from councillors, residents and community groups in recognising the heritage significance of apartment blocks built between 1945 and 1975. The council enlisted GML Heritage to assess 18 buildings in the area for potential heritage protection, nine of which were identified as meeting the criteria for local heritage listing.
Carroll, the Ithaca Gardens owners’ corporation chair, voiced residents’ “overwhelming opposition” to local or state heritage listing at a council committee meeting last week.
“Ithaca Gardens is not a museum, a place of worship, an office tower or an individual residence – it is home to more than 60 people. Owners … love and respect the building,” he said.
Carroll said society had changed in the decades since the block was built, and residents wanted electric vehicle chargers, solar energy, bike racks, lift repairs and upgrades and rooftop amenities.
He said many of the apartments had been renovated internally to make them “more suitable for 21st-century living” and “to deny such rights to others would seem extremely unfair”.
The NSW government is considering state heritage listing Ithaca Gardens, designed by famed architect Harry Seidler.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Carroll said owners worried the “process and complexities” created by heritage listing – which typically mean owners need to abide by certain rules when renovating – would increase strata fees, deter prospective buyers and shrink sale prices.
“We spend large amounts of our own money retaining the integrity of the original side of the design, but what might have been perfect in the 1950s may not be so perfect now, and we want to retain flexibility to meet the needs and expectations of owners while retaining the design integrity of Ithaca Gardens, as we’ve done for 65 years without the need for heritage listing,” Carroll said.
A spokesman for the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said state heritage listing was designed to protect places of significant cultural and historical value while ensuring they remained functional and adaptable to modern needs.
“A listing does not mean that no changes can be made to a property,” the spokesman said.
“Approved works such as the installation of EV chargers, bike racks and lift upgrades can proceed without additional heritage approval, provided they respect the heritage significance of the site.”
Thalis said the buildings represented the “new era of strata title” from the 1950s and ’60s which “revolutionised apartment building, apartment ownership, and apartment living”.
“This was effectively an urban laboratory for new forms of denser living, for new apartment buildings that were of a scale that was not found anywhere else in Australia at the time, and that used the land in a very effective and efficient way.”
Seidler designed the Gemini, Ithaca Gardens and Aquarius buildings, while Bayview and St Ursula were by Hungarian-born modernist architect Hugo Stossel.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore said maintaining historical and cultural heritage while accommodating necessary change and development was a “challenging and important part of city-making”.
Moore said the buildings helped tell the story of Sydney and were fine examples of compact apartments designed to maximise light and amenity.
“There are lessons about planning and design in these buildings that provide helpful guidance for the housing challenges we’re currently facing,” Moore said.
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