Heritage Listing

Hasn’t heritage listing become a joke? If it hadn’t then Parramatta City Council has confirmed it. When I think heritage listing I think the QVB and Sydney Town Hall or Old Government House in Parramatta. The furthest thing from my mind are features red brick houses that were built en masse during the 1970’s, or features of fibro shacks built in the 1950’s.

There is nothing special about these structures. Yet, for some reason Parramatta City Council has nominated a bunch of houses, mainly in the Toongabbie area, for heritage listing. Their nomination is based on things like the original letterbox, the way the house integrates with the carport, a brick chimney or a pebble driveway.

Is this really enough to heritage list a whole property and drive their value into the depths? Because no one will ever by these houses knowing that they will need to apply to the heritage council before doing anything it. These houses just aren’t worth it.

So what could happen?

1. House becomes derelict
2. House could be deliberately vandalised
3. Owner occupiers living in rundown shack because repairs are to expensive
4. There’s probably more but I don’t think there are any good results, but who really knows

The only thing that makes these houses special is the families that live in them. Yet if they are eventually heritage listed it will be those families who will be the first to suffer