Hobart’s mixed heritage too often ignored
great to see a groundswell of public interest in how Hobart should develop.
The Mercury has been dominated by comment about how Hobart City Council will oversee development of the inner city as new high-rise proposals are received.
There has been strong reaction against unlimited high-rise buildings changing our city while proponents try to convince us change is essential and inevitable.
How should these opposing opinions be resolved?
It is essential the council
Margaret Reynolds
first considers the unique heritage it has inherited from the 19th and 20th centuries.
There are excellent examples of careful preservation and creative reuse of prominent heritage buildings. However, it can be depressing to walk around parts of the central business district because scant attention has been given to consistency in development standards and the impact on Hobart’s historic streetscapes.
Some Colonial, Victorian and Art Deco buildings have been poorly “updated” so their special features are obscured.
There appears to be no guidance about appropriate repainting standards. Signage is ad hoc and one wonders whether council has any guidelines about scale, colour and placement of signage to the best effect. The result in many parts of the CBD is a jumble of ad hoc development that has allowed the loss of some of our most appealing streetscapes. There is little serious interpretation of key buildings or sites.
Why have Hobart’s streetscapes become the good the bad and the ugly? Where is the collective imagination and drive to preserve the heritage assets Hobart has inherited?
Hobart council needs to learn from national best practice where there are many examples in other cities that showcase how heritage architecture and modern development can coexist.
It is not possible to remove some of the concrete blocks that have been accepted by previous administrations over the past 60 years but it is possible to take stock of what Hobart has managed to retain and set a new standard for inner city development.
There is an urgent need for a commitment to a Hobart City Heritage Strategy that retains cultural assets and values historic streetscapes.
We need human scale enhancement of our inner city so people can enjoy past and future development. Such a strategy must be proactive and integrated in all planning.
Modern building setbacks like the University of Tasmania’s student housing block is accepted as one way to incorporate modern structures in a heritage precinct. But who was watching for preserving the heritage streetscape when that modernist design was introduced at street level?
Architect Robert MorrisNunn has emphasised the importance of sensitive adaptive re-use of built heritage and his expertise can be viewed at several locations
around the city. As a result, Hobart has benefited from creative re-use of heritage buildings and added value to buildings restored with appropriate attention to their original design and strategic restoration to enable new use.
Councils and government have a leadership role in encouraging potential developers to consider this option, especially if professional advice and support is offered.
Unfortunately, there has been a tendency to see heritage as a “problem” and the state’s heritage protection laws have been viewed as barriers rather than providing opportunities.
If Tasmanian government leadership is convincing in advocating creative re-use of some of our heritage buildings, it would become a significant step in changing attitudes.
Councils need more thoughtful strategies in managing heritage and development. Some may employ heritage officers but those individuals are not part of senior management teams and too often their advice is marginalised in favour of private developers and outside consultants. Big companies often intimidate councils which are then overwhelmed by economic argument regardless of how a new structure will fit within a heritage urban landscape.
It is hard to understand why the Hobart council excluded reference to “heritage” when setting priorities for a recent CBD planning consultancy. Heritage is not an optional extra. It gives the impression the council may have a heritage strategy on a shelf somewhere, but heritage is not regarded as part of the main game. Hobart has its share of modern development that has been allowed to be in breach of quality heritage standards but there is time for our capital to protect its streetscapes.
Developers need to see historic buildings as potentially adding value to their proposals. We need to ask more of developers who try to impose their building style preferences on our city.
Former Queensland Labor senator Margaret Reynolds has many years’ experience developing local government policy and operates a heritage-based business in Richmond.