1 Ryde Road, Source: Google maps
The Trust and members of the local community have been concerned about the rapid deterioration of two historic weatherboard cottages at 1A and 3 Ryde Rd near the Hunters Hill overpass.
Council has told the Mainstreet Committee that the front verandah of 1 Ryde Road was recently demolished without authority. Hunters Hill Council promptly took the developer to court the next day and obtained an injunction.
Heritage items like this need to be conserved.
Source: SMH 3 Sept 2018
Source: treems.com
Hunters Hill Council has been successful in the Land and Environment court, winning cases against two Hunters Hill homeowners who together have been ordered to pay more than $150,000 for illegally cutting down trees in Barons Crescent and in Pains Road in 2016. Read more in the Sydney Morning Herald.
11 Mark Street
How can we get better at protecting, maintaining and adapting our heritage items? There are lessons to be learned from what happened to the Schedule 5 heritage listed cottage at 11 Mark Street.
This small timber workman’s cottage became very dilapidated over many years, despite alerts from Council’s Conservation Advisory Panel (CAP) and the Hunters Hill Trust. The owners initially discussed demolition and creating car parking spaces but eventually proposed to demolish the cottage and reconstruct the front portion of it with a new building behind.
1 Ryde Road
The Council of the time ignored CAP’s detailed advice. CAP recommended that the hipped rear section of the building should not be demolished as it could be anticipated that the two storey rear addition would dominate the little house at the front. Sadly, this has proved to be true. The detail of the rebuilding of the front part of the house and the colour scheme have paid little heed to the original details of the fabric of the cottage. Read the sad case of heritage listed cottage at 11 Mark Street here.
What does this mean today as we stand by and watch the two historic timber cottages steadily deteriorating on Ryde Road?
The owner of the Gladesville Shopping ‘Village’ site wants to amend the local planning instruments to increase the number of flats that can be built on the Gladesville Shopping Village site. The site includes land that is currently a public access car-park on Cowell Street and the timber cottage at 10 Cowell St which was sold to the developer by the previous Hunters Hill Council.
Current planning controls allow approximately 180 apartments to be built on the site. The proposed changes would increase that to 280 apartments.
Read Council’s latest report and recommendations for the GSV proposal here
Council is holding a public meeting to discuss its response to the proposal: 6pm-7pm Thursday 30th August 2018 at 22 Alexandra Street, Hunters Hill. All welcome. Enquiries: Phillppa Hayes, Senior Strategic Planner 9879 9400
Council is proposing to build a ‘Livvi’s Place’ playground on the site of the existing, small playground in High Street near Montefiori in heritage listed Boronia Park. Livvi’s Place playgrounds cater for the very young and those who find it difficult to engage with many existing playgrounds.
Why would Hunters Hill Council want to destroy a serviceable, existing junior playground? The recently agreed Boronia Park Plan of Management identified older children and young people as the priority groups needing playgrounds in Boronia Park.
Livvi’s Place playgrounds are substantial constructions and involve significantly more maintenance than usual playgrounds as they include sand pits, water play equipment, paths to be swept of leaves and sand. A recent visit to Livvi’s Place playgrounds in Ryde and Five Dock showed equipment that had been taken out of service.
The total cost of the project would be much greater than $500,000; the report to CM4443 puts the estimated cost at $500,000 + $200,000 to reconfigure car parking, and does not estimate ongoing costs of maintenance. Read the Trust’s submission to Council here.
The Trust’s stall at this year’s Moocooboola Festival was very successful. Committee members mingled with locals, discussed local heritage and the Significant Trees Register. They answered queries about how people can go about investigating the history of their houses.
It was great to sign up 6 new members and sell some publications as well.
HHT walkers
image: M Sheppard
Our July walk, led by Len Dowsett was a fascinating stroll around some of our local bays including Looking Glass and Glades Bay – which was new to many of us – and as the weather was beautiful and the foreshore sparkling, it proved to be another winner and one of those walks we must do again.
Building owners, architects, consultants and and people working on heritage buildings, sites and precincts will appreciate this Design Guide for Heritage.
The guide was developed by the Government Architects of NSW and the Heritage Council of NSW, and draws on earlier publications developed by the Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter and Heritage Council of NSW.
Luke St & Gladesville Rd, Source: TDK Architects
St Joseph’s College plans to build a huge basketball complex and gymnasium. The basketball court building would be more than 14m high and extend 95m along Luke Street and 34m along Gladesville Road. This is almost twice the height of what is allowed by houses in the adjacent streets.
St Joseph’s College is heritage listed (Heritage Item 1242) and is also within Hunters Hill Council’s General Conservation Area. The current plans have negative impacts on this Heritage Item and also on the local Conservation Area.
The style of the BASKETBALL COMPLEX building has been described as “brutal,” “stark” and “industrial” and is at odds with the residential scale and character of the surrounding streets. It will destroy the garden setting and completely change the character of this part of the campus. Views of various buildings and landscape features will be obliterated.
The heritage-listed stonewalls to Gladesville Road and Luke St will be overwhelmed by the scale of the new structure’s walls. The street trees in Luke St, on public land, will be ‘demolished and replaced’. Existing properties in Luke St will be over shadowed and lose afternoon sun in winter. There will also be sound problems and traffic problems.
The form and finishes of the GYMNASIUM are also unsympathetic to the existing surrounding buildings. The landscaped area between the Brothers’ Residence and Chapel will be destroyed.
Source: majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au
Since this proposal is being classed as a State Significant Development, the College is not necessarily bound by the LEP controls that every other ratepayer is required to abide by. The College still has a moral duty to do the right thing by the community and to respect the objectives and controls set out in Hunters Hill Council’s Local Environment Plan and its Development Control Plan, not just to its own heritage listed campus, but also to the neighbourhood.
The Trust urges Council and the Local Planning Panel, which will ultimately assess the proposals, to reject both in their entirety. Read the Trust’s detailed assessment of the College’s proposal here. For more details of the proposed works: Check here.
Gladesville Shopping Village: Council refuses Planning Proposal
The Trust is glad to report that Hunters Hill Council has ‘refused to support the exhibited Planning Proposal in its current form’ and the proposed amendments were strengthened to emphasise important issues raised by the community including:
A lot will be riding on the proposed site-specific Development Control Plan and, if approved, how this links in with requirement for the review of the Local Environment Plan, new Local Strategic Planning Statements and further Master planning for the Gladesville precinct.
Council expressed appreciation for the volume and content of submissions that contributed to Council’s capacity to provide their report to the Department of Planning.
It all has a long way to go yet!