How could changes to the city’s historic area impact your home?
Property owners have lawyered up to tell Adelaide City Council why they’re concerned about changes to the historic area status of their neighbourhoods. So, what do the proposed changes mean for homeowners?
Three property owners, two represented by lawyers, objected to their homes being dubbed “representative buildings” in planning code changes at the council’s City Planning, Development and Business Affairs Committee on Tuesday night.
Two of these were located in North Adelaide and one in Gilles Street.
The designation comes after all councils were encouraged by the state government to review their historic area planning codes.
According to the code, a representative building is a building in a historic area overlay that displays characteristics of importance in the area, but is not the same as being a state or local heritage place.
After hearing from concerned building owners, the committee deferred the code amendment rather than vote it through to take more time to consider the effected homes that will be listed.
One affected North Adelaide homeowner, Michele Slatter, told the committee her and her husband, both retired law professors, were “flabbergasted” to find out their property was included in the code changes.
“When the papers arrived concerning the code amendment, we read them with particular interest to the representative buildings, and we were completely astonished to find that there was only one noted for Stanley Street, North Adelaide,” she said.
“We were flabbergasted to find that it was our very undistinguished mongrel of a building at number 47.”
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In total, the council had 16 out of 55 building owners object to the proposal to list their buildings as “representative buildings” in its amendment that updates the city’s Historic Area Statement in the Planning and Design Code.
All councils have been encouraged by the state government to update Historic Area Statements in the code to introduce detailed descriptions of the historic attributes of an area and strengthen the ability to assess development in these areas.
The building owners that spoke in the meeting had architects and experts assess their properties and laid out the reasons they thought their buildings shouldn’t be counted as representative buildings.
Slatter says that in their case, they fear their building ended up on the list because “the current exercise has been seduced by a pretty face”.
“It doesn’t look ramshackle at all, it looks moderately attractive, it’s been glowed up,” she says.
“It now sits politely, respectfully amongst its heritage-listed neighbours, and it sits exactly as any repro property would do, subject to all the restrictions within the overlay which we completely endorse.”
The Lord Mayor admiring a restored verandah on a heritage-listed building in North Adelaide. This picture: Helen Karakulak/CityMag
Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith apologised to property owners who have been “offended, upset and worried about this” because she doesn’t think it is a worrisome decision.
Lomax-Smith, who herself lives in a heritage-listed building, says owners have possibly been misled by the documents and that representative buildings can offer some reassurances for residents.
“There are buildings being demolished all over our city with Heritage listing, it is almost meaningless and so the notion that a representative building can do anything but good is laughable in this city,” she said.
“As I understand it, having tried to battle my way through these documents, which I have to say, are not very easy to read, it appears to me that the representative buildings are useful in the development of other people’s buildings.
“The trouble with North Adelaide is some of the new buildings are expressions beyond ghastliness, and the neighbours complain that the value of their property goes down because something really horrid is built next door, and the purpose of a representative building is to allow that to be taken into account when something ghastly is proposed next door.
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“So I see this as protecting the decent buildings from the monstrosities that might be in their neighbours minds.”
Why is the council doing this?
The state government wrote to all councils encouraging them to update Historic Area Statements (and Character Areas) in the Planning and Design Code.
The City of Adelaide doesn’t have character areas, so it’s only updating their historic area statement. They received a $75,000 state government grant to undertake this work which will introduce detailed descriptions of the historic attributes of the area to strengthen the code’s ability to assess development in areas like North Adelaide.
Where is the historic area?
This map indicates the historic areas that the draft code amendment will amend to add information about historical elements of the area and introduce representative buildings. This picture: City of Adelaide
What does it mean if your home is a representative building?
A representative building is a building in a historic area overlay that displays characteristics of importance in the area, but this is not the same as being a state or local heritage place.
If your property is a state or local heritage place, you need to put in a development application to make changes to the building.
A representative building is a lower level of protection that recognises the look and feel of your house in the area.
This chart from PlanSA outlines the different approvals/protections for different building classifications.
What if I want to demolish a representative building and build something new?
If a homeowner of a representative building wants to demolish and build something new, they do need approval from council or the planning minister but not because it is a representative building. Any building in a historic area overlay already needs permission to be demolished and this isn’t a new change.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t demolish your house. If your building is in a historic area, demolition is assessed case-by-case by looking at the historic characteristics of the building to decide whether demolishing is reasonable.
How do I know if the council want to make my house a representative building?
If a property is affected, the council will have already made contact. They ran a consultation from October to December last year. If you participated in the consultation, the council will also let you know once a council decision is made.
What happens next?
The Adelaide City Council’s planning committee has deferred the planning code amendment to review the list of representative buildings and how it’s written. The council will vote on this again next week and it’ll come back to council at a later date.