Chris Steel wears too many hats not to be conflicted, KBRG president Richard Johnston says. Photo: Claire Fenwicke.
The ACT Government’s new statement of heritage priorities was clearly influenced by pressure from developers seeking a clearer run for their projects, according to Kingston Barton Residents Group president Richard Johnston.
“The government is just driven by the development industry, as far as we can see,” he said.
Mr Johnston also slammed the current ministerial arrangements that combine heritage, planning and Treasury, leading to inevitable conflicts of interest.
He said the Inner South had many heritage precincts that would be at risk if the ACT Heritage Council buckled to the Planning Minister Chris Steel’s request that it consider the ACT Government’s housing priorities in heritage decision-making and contribute to the Construction Productivity Agenda.
In the statement, Mr Steel says that he “requests” that the council has regard to housing supply as a Territory and national priority, including the target of achieving 30,000 new homes by 2030.
He also makes it clear that the council should speed up its decision-making processes to reduce red tape, hasten development approvals, and support innovation in the construction sector.
“It is my expectation that the council will develop policies, procedures and practices that simplify information and guidance, reduce unnecessary processes of complying with the Act and maximise certainty for property owners and developers, while encouraging sympathetic and innovative development,” Mr Steel said.
Mr Johnston said he had no problem with simplifying procedures and doing away with any excessively bureaucratic processes, but what the minister’s saying verged very close to being effectively a directive to the Heritage Council.
“But I suppose ultimately it’s up to the Heritage Council what they decide to do about it,” he said.
Mr Johnston said the Heritage Council was supposed to be independent, but when it was being pushed by a minister who wore so many hats, it was a clear conflict of interest.
“How on earth do they make any sense out of the inevitable conflicts that occur in this sort of situation?” he said.
Mr Johnston said the heritage unit was located within the very large City and Environment Directorate, alongside transport and planning.
“It’s a mess, frankly,” he said.
Mr Johnston said Mr Steel had already set the tone with his request last year to the Heritage Council that it consider whether heritage listing of the Kingston shops would conflict with the minister’s priorities to allow shop-top housing.
He said KBRG had argued that extensive areas of the Inner South that are covered by heritage precincts would be at risk from “missing middle” proposals because under the new planning system, the Territory Planning Authority could ignore Heritage Council advice.
The other issue was the proposal to allow residential blocks to be subdivided to enable missing-middle development, without requiring approved buildings on those new blocks.
“You can then effectively end up with a subdivided block with a whole lot of new blocks and then submit an exempt building application for a single house on each of those blocks and get that ticked off,” Mr Johnston said.
“It’s absolutely destroying the credibility of that process. I’m not sure that the Heritage Council would even get a look in in terms of those subsequent building applications that would come in for individual houses on newly created individual blocks.”
Mr Steel has rejected claims that the Heritage Council’s work will be compromised, but says increasing housing supply requires coordinated efforts across government.
“We want that heritage rigour to be there, we want that quality of advice from the Heritage Council, but it also needs to be streamlined,” he said.
The government was looking at every element of the planning and building system to uncover any unnecessary processes and it wanted the Heritage Council to the same.
Mr Steel said he did not have a role in heritage decision making, but he could ask questions of the Heritage Council, as he did for the proposed listing of the Kingston shops.
“They considered those questions and provided an answer and ultimately they made their own independent decision,” he said.
The statement also covers participating in the Southern Gateway Planning and Design Framework, preserving important examples of mid-century modern homes, strengthening the role of First Nations people as Traditional Custodians, embedding climate change and sustainability in heritage decisions, supporting heritage system reform and improved data quality, aligning with ACT Government policies and legislation and maintaining strong governance, conduct and reporting.
