Perth Voice Interactive

THE saga of a historic cottage allowed to fall to bits by its owner Main Roads has exposed the weakness of Vincent council’s heritage enforcement, and one councillor has flagged a need for a tougher enforcement policy to preserve historic buildings.

The cottage on Guildford Road is listed as “category B – conservation recommended” in Vincent council’s heritage inventory, noted as a “substantial and good example of the Federation Arts and Crafts style, which demonstrates the aspirations of the original developers for this neighbourhood before the growth of traffic on Guildford Road impacted so heavily on amenity”.

Main Road owns the 1904 cottage at 40 Guildford Road and first requested approval to demolish it in 2007 (‘Neglected’ cottage to lose protection,” Voice, October 7, 2023). 

Vincent council refused that request, and instead added the cottage to its municipal heritage inventory as “category B – conservation recommended”. The listing called the cottage a “substantial and good example of the Federation Arts and Crafts style, which demonstrates the aspirations of the original developers for this neighbourhood before the growth of traffic on Guildford Road impacted so heavily on amenity”.

Main Roads has now applied to remove that heritage protection with an eye to eventual demolition. Guildford Road is scheduled to be widened, which would chop off the front of the property, and the WA Department of Planning, Lands, and Heritage wants to build social housing on the site. 

The cottage has been empty and has fallen apart under Main Roads ownership in the past 17 years since listing, so keeping it on the MHI list as “a substantial and good example” is harder to justify.

Vincent council staff have recommended it be removed from the MHI, largely because the impending state government road widening plans are seen as inevitable and chopping off the front of the property for a wider road would render any restoration pointless.

Ruin

At the October 10 council briefing, councillor Alex Castle suggested they might need a stronger heritage retention policy given a property on their MHI was allowed to fall to ruin.

While this cottage could theoretically be restored, any property that falls into such a bad state that it can’t be repaired is a candidate for removal from the MHI.

“What powers does the City have to avoid situations like this, where you have a property on the MHI that has been neglected so badly that the condition now would support its removal??” Cr Castle asked. 

“It seems like – I wouldn’t say convenient – but it’s a loophole to the to the requirements of the MHI that mean you can leave it for 17 years and eventually it should be removed. 

“Are there fines or other actions that we could take in these sorts of situations?”

Vincent’s development and design manager Jay Naidoo said enforcement was “difficult” and properties fell apart especially fast when they were empty. He said their best approach at the moment was to work with owners to keep the places occupied, and encourage adaptive reuse of old buildings to keep the spaces in use. 

Cr Castle said: “Perhaps that’s something to be explored in the next review of that policy as to how we address situations like this.”

The policy dealing with amending the MHI is currently overdue for a review, having last been updated in 2015. It was scheduled for another review in 2017.

Councillors vote on whether to nix this one from the list at their October 17 meeting.

by DAVID BELL