187 Stanley Street

Street: 187 Stanley Street, West Melbourne.

Registration Number: 8955

Date: 21/3/1903

Owner: Mrs. Hannah Smith

Builder: Mr. James Wilson, 10 Richardson Street, Carlton

Fee: £ 1.15.0

Type: Two storey house, [with its own large private back yard garden]

Other significant building works created by James Wilson can be found below.

source: Burchett Index

The double storey Victorian-era heritage home was demolished by a developer seeking to construct a high density multi-storey block of flats.

It was was demolished without prior public notice to the surrounding local community.

How can a heritage graded building under the Melbourne Planning Scheme be demolished without a proper planning permit from the City of Melbourne?

Timeline (developed mainly from feedback from the City of Melbourne Planning Department.)

• 1985 Building included in Heritage Places Inventory.
• Late 2011 the application façade was to be retained.
• March 2012 Permit issued – five-storey development behind retained façade.
• July 2012 Amended, façade retained.
• July 2013 Amended, façade retained.
• January 2014 Applicants requested removal of Condition 4 which required an engineering plan to be submitted to Council on how the face was to be supported during excavation. Applicants wanted to rebuild the façade wall not to the original specification and this was (correctly in our view) opposed by the Council’s Heritage Advisor.  Council Officers advised that there would be a preference for the building to be removed.
• Application placed on hold until applicants decided how they wished to proceed.
• December 2013 – February 2014 Agreement was granted – not clear by whom – for full demolition as there was no Heritage Overlay applying to the property requiring a Planning Permit.
• May 2015 Applicants met with Council Officers – discussed new design and full demolition, which appear to have been endorsed by Council later in the month.
• 31 July 2015 After questions of completed demolition were raised by locals, Council Officer contacted applicant who advised that revised plan will be submitted within the next two weeks.

Revised scheme will be advertised and made available for public comment.

The community were not aware that a structure outside the area covered by a Heritage Overlay could be demolished without a permit. We are, in fact, alarmed that this is the case. We are further alarmed that this development is to be readvertised but only after the heritage house has been demolished. How are we to argue for the protection of heritage, after the house is gone? The horse has bolted.

Why is a permit issued by a private building consultant allowed to permit the demolition of such a graded two-storey house?

What we find even more disturbing is that the demolition appears to have been authorised by a private Building Surveyor with a notice to this effect attached to the fence on the site.  Is there some collusion between the Council and private surveyors to approve demolitions when they secretly agree that such a course of action is desirable from their point of view, or do such surveyors think they have the power to approve such actions in their own right? Where is the public transparency in either of these possibilities?

How was this house not covered by a Heritage Overlay?

Why? Was it a mistake? Was it carelessness?  Was it incompetence?   We do not know.  All we know is that an impressive two-storey façade of a graded house has been lost in what we regard as unacceptable circumstances totally lacking in any public transparency and failing completely to respect the “heritage policies” of the City of Melbourne.

This section of Stanley Street represents one of the few areas in the former industrial areas of West Melbourne where a reasonably-sized streetscape has survived the industrial onslaught intact. It represents, like no other area, the working class origins of the suburb. This demolished house and the two remaining next to it, illustrate the mix of more affluent structures amid working class houses that once were widely dispersed throughout the suburb, covering the area from Festival Hall to the City to the Victoria Market and up to the Errol Street shopping centre.  The loss of this house diminishes what is left to show future generations what the Victorian form of West Melbourne was once like.

image source: Google maps.

source: City of Melbourne and Mr. Bill Cook