London or New York might salivate at the prospect of reviving an inner-city heritage landmark, but in Sydney it seems we’d still just as readily swap character for a car park.
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Marrickville Council is under heavy fire from heritage experts, who fear ‘‘ill-informed’’ decision makers are repeating Sydney's errors of last century in the race to redevelop increasingly valuable inner-city space.
The criticisms by the National Trust and the Australian Institute of Architects follow a decision by the council this week to ignore its own report recommending it heritage list a Beynon & Hayward warehouse in Petersham because it might interfere with plans to upgrade a public car park.
The trust’s NSW president, Ian Carroll, said the same "unfortunate mindset" that nearly destroyed The Rocks 50 years ago and that now threatened Millers Point was "playing out at a local/suburban scale" in areas such as the Petersham site.
The matter, which split the council 6-6, was decided on the casting vote of Labor’s Emanuel Tsardoulias, who refused to comment to Fairfax Media.
‘‘It beggars belief even thinking about it now,’’ said Liberal councillor Mark Gardiner, who has banded together with the Greens in a last-ditch bid to reverse the decision at next month’s meeting.
‘‘It’s not for councillors to decide what buildings are important. It’s for councillors to take the advice of heritage experts and they are saying strongly that this building is important.”
But what a heritage report described as a “rarity” dating back as far as 1886, independent councillor Victor Macri called a Livingstone Road “eyesore”, amid a parking shortfall that was hurting nearby businesses.
“This is probably the last opportunity we’re going to have to actually do something about a really poor situation with the parking up there,” Cr Macri said.
Although the warehouse is privately owned, council has called for proposals to redevelop its adjoining Chester Street car park; Cr Macri confirmed the warehouse’s owner ‘‘made an application during that process’’.
He said part of the building could be retained without the listing but Greens councillor Max Phillips said it was expected the warehouse would otherwise be demolished to make way for apartments.
"It would be shocking to allow another heritage building to be destroyed, when it should be saved and reused," Cr Phillips said.
The Australian Institute of Architects' NSW president, Joe Agius, said despite ‘‘more enlightened’’ developers retaining heritage amid Sydney's urban renewal, ‘‘ill-informed’’ decision makers in state and local government were letting the public down.
“If council is making a decision that’s contrary to the advice that they’re given and that decision’s coloured by a development opportunity for the council itself that doesn’t sound terribly transparent,” he said.
Philip Thalis, of Hill Thalis Architecture + Urban Projects – recently enlisted to turn the nearby heritage-listed Majestic Theatre into award-winning apartments – said the value in doing so had been recognised from council through to the people living there.
Mr Thalis backed calls to retain and "imaginatively adapt" the Beynon & Hayward warehouse, saying the firm had at one stage encouraged the Majestic Theatre client to try to buy the site.
‘‘That is a perfect building to adapt without having to demolish it," he said.
