|
Society of Heritage Owners NSW Just, transparent heritage laws with positive incentives for owners. |
 |  |
 |  |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Why are owners so appalled at the 'service' from NSW Council Heritage Officers?
The major complaint we receive from owners of private properties subject to actual or mooted Council heritage listings is about the appalling treatment meted out by NSW Council's designated Heritage Officer.
These complaints were so widespread and so consistent that SoHONSW commenced looking into not only the selection process for heritage specialist Council staff, funding for their positions, how they were trained and supervised, in an effort to identify why our members found their service ethic, attitude, level of knowledge and abilities to be so poor and biased in favour of extremist heritage organisations and hostile towards owners. Many were operating outside the policies their own employer/Council professed to adhere to, seemingly with impugnity.
In NSW we discovered the following:
- most NSW Councils cannot afford to hire a specialist Heritage Officer/s;
- many of the positions that do exist only do so because of a subsidized funding agreement for the postion supplied by the then NSW Heritage Branch of the NSW Deoartment of Planning. The NSW Heritage Office used this partial funding deal essentially as a 'lure' to Councils to get them to hire someone specifically for heritage work, with the clear goal of increasing Council heritage listings. Our concern is such an increase was often not accompanied by application of professionally acceptable heritage listing practices, but was more about a listing frenzy or league table mentality or local Councillors pandering to the fanaticism of some local historical groups who had been stirred up by local heritage specialists running their heritage businesses and wanting more work via poorly assessed heritage listings;
- because there are many small Councils with little regular or on-going heritage work, Councils have either hire a part time person to undertake heritage work [sometimes the same local heritage specialist who had organised the local historical groups to put pressure the Council and Councillors to heritage list more item!] or they have a full time planning staff member whose job is carved up so they spend a certain amount of time on heritage issues and the rest on other planning duties. Wealthier Councils however have full time, dedicated Heritage Officers, and very large wealthy Councils can have more than one such position or even an entire section;
- SoHONSW received most complaints about the part time heritage specialists who do not otherwise work for the Council, the very wealthy Councils with more than one full time Heritage Officers or those who worked full time on heritage and not in any other mainstream planning tasks. We also tend to receive far fewer complaints about Council Heritage Officers who undertake heritage work as part and parcel of a normal range of planning duties. In fact, the only Council Heritage Officers SoHONSW has ever received compliments about was this latter category;
- SoHONSW does not believe it is a mere coincidence that the overwhelming percentage of complaints derive from part time or casual Council Heritage Officers and/or the full time ones with no exposure to planning outside the heritage context;
- This is because the casual or part time staff tend to be drawn from existing members of the local community who have a long standing interest and dedication to heritage issues, but without any or much broader planning training and perspectives. SoHONSW sees such appointments as particularly dangerous as the occupants of these positions tend to be local one-eyed heritage fanatics, often drivers of local heritage listings, often also without adequate training in critical balancing issues, such as procedural fairness or the broader planning policies and context. They then unsurprisingly operate as rogue elements, totally focussed on their personal heritage passion and long standing heritage hobby, without an equal commitment to other critical areas necessary to undertake their work optimally or lawfully;
- The problems associated with the wealthy Councils with dedicated full time Heritage Officer/s or even sections is outright heritage fanaticism. Such positions tend to attract existing planners who have developed a speciality in heritage issues. Some have even undertaken additional specialist heritage training. These tend to be staff whose working life as well as private passion revolve around protecting and defending heritage adn whose mind is closed to any other perspectives. It is extremely rare to get anyone in these postions who has an open or better yet - critical - mind towards heritage or heritage listings and their validity. Some of these staff also operate their own private heritage consulting companies where they work for one Council and are trained as a heritage specialist and then tout their services to other Councils, owners or others on the side. Some do this with the goal of eventually leaving the employ of Council and working full time as a private heritage consultant;
- In fact, many Council heritage staff fitting these two profiles also simultaneously belong to a number of well known organisations that advocate strongly for increased heritage, regularly nominate items for heritage listing, who are known to hold hostile or dismissive attitudes towards owners of heritage listed properties in the event they dispute the heritage listing, as well as to other planning staff who attempt to inject wider planning vision into heritage considerations and/or state government planning policies.
- SoHONSW considers it to be an extremely serious conflict of interest for any Council or state government heritage staff, advisers or reporters to also be members of pro heritage organisations. Such membership calls immediately into question whose interests it is that they are serving. Under no circumstances does public probity rules allow them to sit in judgement or make decisions over items nominated on, reported on or advoated for by fellow members of the same pro heritage organisation they belong to. Yet this breach of public probity fundamentals happens again and again when it comes to heritage matters and we believe this malfeasance in public office should be investigated by the NSW Ombudsman and/or ICAC;
- SoHONSW also considers that NSW Councils have tended to allow one-eyed heritage fanatics to dominate and manipulate the selection of Council Heritage Officers. It is not unusual for a known heritage-mad Councillor to be 'thrown the bone' of chairing that Council's Heritage Committee or Reference Group or to sit on that committee. Once in place, they commence a campaign not only to appoint a Heritage Officer consistent with their personal ideology, but also to assist drafting the Statement of Duties, sit on the Selection Committee and often afterwards, play a large role in directing how the Heritage Officer spends their time. It is an internal self-referencing system, where one highly heritage focussed individual within Council is able to manipulate the process to ensure an equally fanatical person is appointed as the Council Heritage Officer and carries out a fanatical agenda with no reasonable consideration of legal requirements and often no declaration to their employer and/or affected owners that they happen to be members of pro heritage organisations whose members are often the ones nominating properties for heritage listing. It is totally unacceptable and we say putativey corrupt for any heritage listing staff to be in such a clearly conficted role;
The pathetically out of date and impractical training of NSW Heritage Officers
- SoHONSW is strongly critical of the purported heritage "training" received by Council Heritage Officers. In particular, we are critical of the heritage training from the NSW Local Government and Shires Association and the NSW Heritage Branch [previously Office], which comprises the overwhelming majority of training in heritage received by NSW Council staff;
- The training delivered under the auspices of the NSW Local Government and Shires Association is seriously deficient because of that organisations long standing contempt for owners of heritage listed property rights and repeated attempts in public submissions to gain additional punitive criminal sanctions to apply against owners without supplying any credible evidence in support of their claims. The 2008 Review of the NSW Heritage Act has this to say when it quickly and neatly disposed of this request from the NSW LG&SA and others attempting to secure strong sanctions purportedly to address heritage neglect by owners" The Expert Panel does not believe the deliberate neglect of local items is widespread" [p66] and reforms such as those asked for by the NSWLG&SA "are not supported". The NSWLG&SA was also smacked down when it made the same submission a few years previously to the 2006 Productivity Commission inquiry, which stated "...." It is inconceivesable that NSW Councisl are paying for their staff and others to attend NSWLG&SA heritage training when that organisation is so openly hostile to all the heritage reforms enacted in NSW;
- Further the President of the NSWLG&SA is Ms Genia McCaffery, who is also Mayor of North Sydney Council. Ms McCaffery regularly criticises the state government and others for breaches of due process, lack of transparency, failure to consult with stakeholders, and secreting documents relating to planning policy changes. Ms McCaffery also worked for the NSW National Trust for many years and regularly appears at their public events, often as a featured speaker. This is what a NSW Land and Environment Court Judge had to say about Ms McCaffery;s Council and how her staff went about their planning work, including that related to heritage issues "....."
- It is the position of SoHONSW that is is totally inappropriate for NSW Councils to fund the attendance of their staff to any heritage training under the auspices of the NSW LG&SA as that body and its President have a long standing record of unacceptable approach to heritage matters;
- The NSW Heritage Branch should of course be providing an alternative, credible and unbiased training in heritage issues to Council staff and others, however SoHONSW is also unimpressed with the 'training' they have provided thus far. For example, you will see that one of the worst Councils in NSW for heritage rorts is Bathurst Regional Council, who have manipulated their discretionary heritage powers to such an extent that almost the entire local government area falls within a heritage area, thus reversing the onus of proof. Owners are required to go to the trouble and expense of proving a negative ie., that their property is not heritage, whenever they lodge a DA. It also means the real cost of heritage reports are borne not by the Council who applied the heritage overlay and made the heritage claim without factual backup on all affected items, but on the owner. One of the main tactics orgnaisations like the NSWLG&SA complains about is what they term sneaky cost shifting by the state government. It appears in relation to heritage fanatics tactics, they have taken the same strategy they detest and applied it to heritage owners. SoHONSW considers this nothing less than abuse, exploitation and rorting of local Councils discretionary heritage powers to amount to at best, maladmininstration under the NSW Ombudsmans Act or at its worst, corruption within the meaning of the NSW Independant Commisson Against Corruption Act. It is therefore an outrage that the NSW Heritage Branch is holding up Bathurst Regional Council's way of managing heritage as an exemplar of correct or best practice and/or using staff from Bathurst Regional Council with experience creating this appalling, abusive heritage management system as the 'trainers' for other NSW Heritage Officers;
- SoHONSW has been unable to identify any individuals with a critical approach to heritage who have been used as lecturers or trainers in any of the so called 'training' provided to NSW Council staff. The training of Council staff from both organisations appears to be an rah, rah, internally self referencing and self congratulatory process, with zero critical input concerning the validity of Council heritage listings, how to check existing heritage schedules to ensure ongoing compliance with valid heritage criteria and insufficient or no attention to issues concerning de-listing at the Councils initiative. The two major , recent government reports into heritage are either ignored, or if referred to, it is in snide, carping manner that reflects the point of view of extremist heritage organisations whose submissions were rejected in large part by both reviews. Government policy, laws, practices and persepectives are not what these Council Heritage Officers receive instruction in - what they get is more akine to heritage propaganda and detailed instructions about how to sabotague government policy; and
- when we do achieve major reforms to the NSW Heritage listing system such as those passed by the NSW Parliament in June 2009, which firmly reset the heritage listing and delisting agenda and include proper consideration of owner issues - what is the response of the NSW Heritage Branch's training program? To allocate 30 minutes to these important a job altering changes and devote twice as much time on that training day to COANZ - a group that has worked to stop these heritage reforms at their next training day on 21 August 2009. Have a look at their agenda. Its as if the pashas in the NSW Heritage Branch are paying minimal lip service to these important legislative changes and in so doing, failing to train effectively and get the required degree of detailed information out to those who will have to implement these reforms. Interesting method to spike them.
- what does the NSWLG&SA do to alter their training for Council Heritage Officers from May 2009 before the NSW Heritage Amendment Act was law and after it became law? Nothing. The training program is the same - with a focus on the Burra Charter and not on complying with the law first.
13-May-2009
Heritage Short Course for Local Government Development Approvals: The Heritage Perspect (13/05/2009) Sydney Participants will include councillors, directors, planners, building and health inspectors and engineers, and others interested in heritage issues in local government. 16-Oct-2009
Sydney
Participants will include councillors, directors, planners, building and health inspectors and engineers, and others interested in heritage issues ion local government.
Heritage Short Course for Local Government Development Approvals: The Heritage Perspect (13/05/2009)13 May 2009
Topics Include: Venue:SydneyHeritage Short Course for Local Government Development Approvals: The Heritage Perspec (16/10/2009)16 October 2009
Topics Include:
The Development Assessment Environment - The legislative framework - Internal and external pressures - Expectations of the applicant and council. Conducting an Informed Assessment Conservation Area Management Assessment Criteria Heritage Conservation Principles - The Burra Charter - Assessing significance - Defining conservation policy - Implementation - The relevance of heritage assessments to the DA process Case Study: Site Visit Recent Changes to the Heritage Act Venue:Sydney It is SOHONSW's view that the major contributor to Council Heritage Officers in NSW being so appalling at their job is their biased training.
We consider the NSWLG&SA - especially with Genia McCaffery as President - is ideologically unwilling to amend the heritage training they offer to include the type of unbiased information Heritage Officers must receive. Therefore, the only hope of Councils having well trained, unbiased Heritage Officers is to reform the training content and presenters offered by the NSW Heritage Branch and ensure NSW Councils only fund staff or Councillors attendance at approved heritage training, which must include lecturers and content who are critical of current poor heritage performance, accurately describe lawful heritage listing and de-listing procedures and accurately cover heritage judgements of the NSW Land and Environment Court. It is imperative that there be a recognised and required Devil's Advocate role in any training sessions undertaken by an individual with credibility, to offer a critique from the owners perspective . Too often heritage conferences and training select a 'tame' owner of private property which has been heritage listed to ensure any criticisms that do emerge are either mild or widly out of context or amatuerish. A handy technique to ensure attendees take no heed of such comments. |
Powered by Web Piston Website Builder
|