Shadow Minister for Heritage speaks on Bayside Heritage Study | Brad Rowswell MP

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Transcript:

Mr R SMITH (Warrandyte) (19:00): (6316) My adjournment matter today is for the Minister for Planning, and my request is that he meets with residents in the Sandringham electorate so he can gain a full understanding of their concerns regarding heritage issues. Last week I met a number of residents in Beaumaris at a meeting organised by the member for Sandringham to discuss Bayside council’s plans—and by extension the Minister for Planning’s plans—to heritagelist around 100 properties in that area. This has caused all sorts of problems for those residents. They do not know what is going to happen. They do not know if they are going to get overlays on their residences. They do not know if it is going to restrict them from being able to do any necessary repairs or maintenance work. Overall, in meeting those residents they told me that it is a very confusing process and that they are in favour of choice. As a proud Liberal I am also in favour of choice. They want a voluntary system instead of a mandatory heritage-listing system.

The rights of property owners are being trampled on by this government, and I believe that the government should get a full understanding of what those impacts are going to be with the minister going out and speaking to these Beaumaris residents. They could take their issues to VCAT, but VCAT is too expensive for the average resident, and of course we have got a backlog in VCAT that is horrendously long, so that would just take too much time.

It should be acknowledged by the government that different suburbs have different standards for heritage listings. We cannot compare a 120-year-old Edwardian home to a 60-year-old modern design in Bayside. The people that have the most to lose are those residents who bought their homes without knowing that there was going to be this whole heritage fight over them. The council has said that the residents should get heritage consultants. They are expensive, and the council has budgeted for 90 new heritage homes. They have got their own heritage consultants, and consequently 100 of the homes in the area have been identified by the council’s heritage consultants.

Again, the residents are just very concerned that this is going to be an issue that is going to impact them into the longer term. The solution is to have a voluntary process. This was actually supported by the government in 2017 when the debate was had, and the government should respect the decision of that debate, which was to have that voluntary process. So again I say I would love to see the Minister for Planning go out to Beaumaris and meet those residents. He would get a great reception if he only took the time to understand what impact his and his government’s direction is having on those residents.