We own a house in Sydney which was built in 1875 and I've restored to its former glory (not that it need major work). I bought it in 1973 with money loaned to me by my paternal Grandparents and shared the house with 5 friends to repay the loan. Over 20 years I slowly restored it to original condition, even chasing the old gas lines for lighting out of the plasterwork to replace them with modern electrical cabling.The only "modernisation" is in the electrical side of things, upgraded plumbing, a new and expanded kitchen, a couple of en suite bathrooms and the knocking out of one timber wall to create what became (and still is) my studio and office. To cut a long story short about 12 months ago we got a letter from NSW Heritage saying they were going to list the house on the Historic Houses Register. I contacted them to find out how the house was selected, the reply back was " It still has an extant servants quarters". This somewhat surprised me as the only servants quarters shown on the original architects plan was for the 2 rooms I knocked together as my studio. I wrote back saying this was impossible and could they explain how they have figured it out, their reply was to say that it was the buildings to the rear of the house. Contact them again and point that the said building had only existed since about the late 1970' - early 1980's as it was built over the three lean to sheds that had existed before and supplied photos to show them. They were adament I was wrong and I would have to put a complaint in through the Land & Environment court. This was done and along with my solicitor and all my documents etc we won in that court, the Heritage Dept. challenged this decision and so off to the High Court of NSW we went. Of course the High Court is where you need K.C.'s ( or Senior Counsel as some prefer) at $20 - $30,000 per day plus solicitors and all the other legal hangers on. Luckily I have a friend who is a very senior KC and was prepared to do a "No Win No Charge" deal for me. We managed to get statements those friends who had helped do some of the work back in the day, 3 assessments from architectural historians and statements from the local historian. We won. The way they had decided to list the house was on the basis on an aerial photo and the person who decided is not an architect or historian just some clerk in the department. I had said I was happy to have the house listed and all I wanted was for it to be listed for the correct reasons not some fanciful idea of the department. Anyway it's cost the government in excess of $250,000 in legal fees for me plus the cost of my expert witnesses and my personal out of pocket expenses to travel to Sydney to defend the case. Sometimes you can fight City Hall and win.
Stick it to the man! Reassuring that the $250k is taxpayers money that cold be far better spent on things that benefit the tax payer…..no doubt said clerk is still safe in their job p*****g money up the wall for a living just like over here.
You did stick it to the man . Lucky you had a QC friend and all the evidence. Do you think it was one person who just wouldn’t back down? I expect they may have had a bit of a telling off afterwards
Well done young man, it's good to see someone having a fight against beaurocracy, and winning. The system is set up so that even if you are in the right, if you can't afford the fees, you have no chance, whereas in your case the planning department had plenty of money, although it happened to be the taxpayers!
I had similar in the past but they usually back down as I was once a casually paid advisor to Worcestershire county planning office and know all the bosses. They are chicken poop nobody’s in some of those planning offices!
Glad to know that somebody in Australia believes there is a heritage to preserve. Sad to hear they arent up to their job.
