Newtown, Sydney

I was allowed to go nuts in the rear laneway with this job, and did so. The street frontage hasn’t changed for a good hundred years, it still looks like a charming rundown street of workers cottages – a stage set. Out the back, all the wealthy owners have been stuffing second storeys in behind the existing roof ridges, which are pretty low. Negotiation with council was quite easy, and can be abbreviated to, ‘we don’t mind what you get up to but we don’t want to have to look at it.’ Nothing at all could intrude upon the streetscape, not even a roof-light. Cross ventilation and daylighting were less than ideal in the room wedged under the roof, so the clients put in air-conditioning. I looked jealously across the road to a four- storey brick tower some ‘neighbourhood character’ had built in the nineteenth century.

Another case of something that would not get permission these days, and yet it is protected now, because it is there. I had to buy a heritage guide for the municipality and encountered an apparent conflict – on the one hand council wants to support contemporary architecture and avoid pastiche, and yet provides photo-copied patterns for dormer windows that look like they come from an old American textbook. Perhaps the answer is in the introduction: ‘It should be noted that the following controls are generally focussed towards character housing, however the controls can also produce positive design outcomes for contemporary styles of housing.’ (Marrickville Council DCP35). There’s that ‘character’ word again. They don’t mind if your neighbourhood has a bit of character, it just can’t be yours. It should preferably be the character of a bunch of dead colonial speculators building from pattern books. ‘Character’ is being defined now as the beneficial homogenous qualities present in a street. In the suburbs, many important houses of the ‘50s are being bowled over for 30 square McMansions.

These old houses are unfortunately isolated from one another and don’t get to contribute to a street’s homogeneity, and so find it a lot hardly to get protection.
Perhaps Caroline Springs should receive protection right now – there are whole neighbourhoods of early twenty-first century speculative homes that en masse have developed a unique neighbourhood character and contribute to the municipal identity. If I found myself in control of the steering wheel I might consider installing design review panels to review designs and make decisions.
An independent and informed panel could tackle heritage, planning, and design together at the one meeting. The designer and owner would be present. 70% of run-of-the-mill house renovations in heritage areas could be approved on the spot, at sketch design. Maybe then architects might be tempted to bring more designs to the table that are appropriate to all aspects of the site, rather than designs that have been scared into conformity by red tape and bitter experience.