Society of Heritage Owners NSW Just, transparent heritage laws with positive incentives for owners.

Worst NSW Councils for heritage abuses

SoHONSW has asked its members and supporters for nominations for the local Council in NSW who is the worst when it comes to:

- mistreating the owners of heritage listed or heritage nominated properties;

- having owning hating, disrespectful heritage policies and procedures;

- engage is heritage trickery or deceit or in other ways exploit or misuse their heritage discretionaty powers to the detriment of owners;

- promulgate one-eyed heritage propaganda in their documentation and/or fail to appropriately and reasonably list all advantages and disadvantages contingent with a heritage listing; and/or

- fail to have any owners or representatives of heritage owners on their key heritage committees and/or fail to consult appropriately and respectfully with owners.

The NSW Council we consider most mistreats heritage owners will be announced in early 2009.

The short-listed NSW Councils are:

- Kur-ing-gai - for catering excessively to the heritage extremism of a small group of heritage fanatics, many of whom reside in this local government area and allowing them to manipulate and abuse the heritage nomination committees, policies and procedures without sensible checks and limits. This has facilitated the harassment and abuse of elderly and other vulnerable property owners over decades. It has also encouraged these heritage fanatics to repeatedly nominate the same properties for heritage listings as well as encouraged them to attempt to create massive heritage conservations zones that if approved by the Minister for Planning would have the intended effect of insulating blocs of this local government area from higher density zonings. Their latest unlawful use of Council's discretionary heritage power for non-genuine heritage purposes is to cave in to pressure from the National Trust of NSW to create massive 'curtileges' [some up to half a kilometer away] around some of their favourite properties such as Eryldene.

- Sydney City - for producing the most voluminous heritage report of any NSW Council which purported to involve key 'stakeholders' while consistently failing to consult with and/or treat affected property owners with any respect. It includes their failures to properly and lawfully retain key documents they purportedly relied on when making decisions affecting heritage listed properties, thus leaving no discernible trail of documents for affected owners to examine or appeal. How convenient for SCC that they cannot locate these key documents that identify who made these critical decisions adversely impacting on owners or the reasons for them;

- Bathurst Regional Council - for heritage listing almost the entire local government area using a sneaky 'back door' method via the creation of massive heritage precincts or zones r or overlays. Compounding the sin by applying a reverse onus of proof on the many affected property owners so that owners now have to 'prove' their building is not heritage before the Council will consider a Development Application. This sneaky cost shifting transfers the heritage assessment costs from Council and on to affected owners, most of whom have a building with no heritage merit whatsoever. This open ended abuse techniques remain available to local government in NSW, despite the 2006 Federal government Productivity Commission calling for these powers to rort heritage be removed. Shame also on the NSW Heritage Office [now Branch] for conducting training for NSW Council Heritage Officers which holds up the Bathurst 'methodology' and Bathurst staff experienced in this system in their 2008 Heritage Officer training seminars as the ideal. Training NSW Council Heritage Officers in techniques for benchmarking against one of the worst heritage rorts in NSW is dispicable and the person/s within the Heritage Branch responsible for creating and implementing this training agenda should be sacked for actively promulgating this dodgy approach amongst Council Heritage Officers. No wonder most owners find the Council Heritage Officers appalling to deal with, given their propagandist, one sided and biased training.

- North Sydney for being caught out by the NSW Land and Environment Court for significant abuses involving heritage and FSR down-zoning, secreting the documents so the public were unable to find out about these mooted changes [this ensuring minimal public knowledge or transparency] and manipulating the so called 'independent evaluation' by external consultants to ensure they did not rock the boat. All nicely exposed in Castle Constructions case.

- Wollongong City - for heritage listing items via a closed loop process with key participants having serious conflicts of interest and failing to abide by professionally acceptable heritage criteria. Heritage listing on sentiment not facts. Failure to notify affected owners. Persecution of heritage owners. Failure to review tainted heritage listings, despite wide spread knowledge they fail to meet basic heritage listing criteria and harassment of owners who publicly complain about being mistreated. Wollongong Council's General Manager David Farmer kowtowing to heritage fanatics seeking ever greater power over local private properties, including ones not subject to Council hertiage listings, but whose owners are being required to spend $100,000 'proving' their property with no heritage listing, is not heritage!

How the failure of the NSW Heritage Branch of the NSW Department of Planning to articulate government heritage laws and principles down to local government level is allowing heritage abuses to continue unchecked in NSW.

The $20m cancer ridden smoke stack in Wollongong

Heritage may prevent Port Kembla stack from coming down

BY LAUREL-LEE RODERICK AND PAUL MCINERNEY

29/08/2009 4:00:00 AM

Plans to demolish the Port Kembla Copper stack could be derailed by an eleventh-hour Wollongong City Council suggestion that the 198m-high chimney has "heritage significance".

An environmental assessment, detailing the plans to use controlled explosions to bring down the stack, was placed on public display on April 30.

At the time Port Kembla Copper (PKC), which owns the site, told the Mercury it could cost up to $20 million to repair and preserve the stack and raised questions about who would be responsible for upkeep and safety into the future.

But PKC has now been told by the Department of Planning that it needs to submit a detailed heritage impact assessment before the demolition application can be determined.

Two other heritage listed items on the site - the Assay office building and a smaller brick chimney stack - are being retained.

It is understood that a full heritage assessment by PKC could cost up to $100,000 and delay the approval process by up to three months.

In a council submission to the Department of Planning, released to the Mercury by the council, general manager David Farmer said the demolition proposal should "not be approved" until a heritage assessment was completed.

"Whilst not a listed heritage item, it is clear that the 200m high stack proposed for demolition is of heritage significance," Mr Farmer wrote.

"The stack has become a grand and highly visible and evocative symbol of the importance of the industry of Port Kembla to the development of Wollongong and the Illawarra."

The submission also suggests the "archaeological potential" of the site and risk of disturbing relics has not been considered.

The close proximity of the site to heritage listed buildings on the former Port Kembla Public School site is also raised.

The council declined to comment on the submission as the Department of Planning was still assessing the application.

However, the Mercury understands the heritage of the stack has not previously been investigated and in July, the council resolved to undertake a major review of the city's outdated heritage schedule.

A Department of Planning spokesperson confirmed that Wollongong City Council and the NSW Heritage Branch had raised the heritage issue, prompting the request for further details from PKC.

"Potential impacts on the site's industrial heritage were one of the key issues raised in submissions received for the Port Kembla Copper demolition project," the spokesperson said.

"The department has requested that the proponent update their response to submissions to address these concerns."

Yesterday afternoon, PKC director Ian Wilson declined to comment on the council's heritage submission.

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/heritage-may-prevent-port-kembla-stack-from-coming-down/1608988.aspx?storypage=0

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