Take Action: City of Melbourne Heritage Strategy

The City of Melbourne is developing a new Heritage Strategy and feedback is now open until mid-March.

The Heritage Strategy is a big deal. It will shape the way the council protects both heritage and non-heritage buildings for years to come.

Key talking points for YIMBYs

There are three key points we want to emphasise to the City of Melbourne about their new Heritage Strategy:

• Heritage clashes with sustainability: City of Melbourne heritage policies restrict height and vertical extensions. Less density in the transport-rich inner city means more people pushed to the fringe, increasing carbon emissions for all of Melbourne.
• Heritage restrictions increase housing stress by limiting the supply of housing and pushing rents up. Heritage houses are also likely to be poorly lit, poorly insulated, and mouldy, forcing many people to live in substandard housing.
• There is no evidence that heritage has any meaningful benefits, including common claims that it  increases tourism and other vague economic factors. In fact, heritage restrictions likely negatively impact hotel development. Additionally, policies that restrict density cause lower economic growth by inhibiting agglomeration effects.

How to get your voice heard

1. Attend a City of Melbourne consultation workshop

In-person
‍Tuesday, 5 March 2024
6:00-7:30pm
Melbourne Town Hall
‍Register here to attend

Virtual
‍Thursday, 14 March 2024
6:00-7:30pm
Online
‍Register here to attend

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2. Complete a short survey

Complete the City of Melbourne survey here

See sample responses from the Council here, and refer to our tips below to inform your response.

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3. Share your unique heritage experience

Post a comment here with any heritage ‘experience’ (for instance, with a heritage carpark or a mouldy heritage share house?)

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Ask for better heritage policy—without requiring any demolition.

Even if you like heritage buildings, you can still advocate for more flexibility to heritage policies. For example, the Cancer Council building proposal in Carlton was rejected primarily for heritage reasons - even though it is not a heritage building.

The City of Melbourne can drastically change heritage policies to allow more density without allowing full demolition. Here are some examples of flexible heritage policy that does not require the demolition of any heritage buildings

• The City of Melbourne should explicitly allow vertical extensions with no setbacks to encourage building more homes while maintaining heritage buildings
• All non-contributory buildings in City of Melbourne heritage overlays should be removed from heritage controls so that they can be developed fully to provide more housing
• The City of Melbourne should stop expanding heritage overlays and limit new heritage designations to only a few buildings per year (only the most significant)
• The City of Melbourne should remove all references to protecting ‘low-rise’ scale and low building heights in DDOs and strategy statements linked to heritage areas
• The City of Melbourne’s Municipal Planning Statement should explicitly prioritise the climate change emergency above heritage concerns, including allowing more homes in established suburbs in order to prevent further sprawl.

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Why heritage in the City of Melbourne is problematic

Heritage started out protecting only our most significant buildings, but it has gone too far. In many City of Melbourne suburbs, the majority of residential land is subject to heritage controls. Heritage covers 69% of lots in Melbourne that are zoned to allow housing covering 56% of the developable land in the LGA.

Heritage is preventing new housing where people most want to live. Streets with heritage protection are the ideal places to allow more housing.

Heritage areas have access to the best parks. City of Melbourne heritage overlays are closest to the best park land such as the Botanic Gardens, Carlton Gardens, Princess Park, and Royal Park.

Heritage areas have the best public transport. 95% of the land subject to heritage controls in Melbourne is within 500m of a tram stop or train station, compared to only 80% of non-heritage land.

Heritage areas have less pollution, noise, and traffic risk. Residential zones are mostly heritage-protected, but these are areas without freeways or dangerous trucks. We should be putting more housing in these areas. 

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Heritage is clashing with Melbourne being a sustainable city. Rather than situating population growth in the high-amenity, walkable neighbourhoods - heritage overlays protect ‘established suburbs’ with limited change allowed. This leads to an unsustainable city as people are forced into more car-dependent areas and new suburbs with huge environmental costs are built on the city fringe.

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Melbourne already has more than 12,867 heritage-protected properties. Could the 12,868th property really be significant?

Use this information to help inform your answers to the City of Melbourne Heritage Strategy Survey now.