Background

The City's Local Heritage Inventory classifications

All places that are considered to be of heritage value are included on the City’s Local Heritage Inventory (LHI). The LHI assigns each place a management category of either A, B C or D depending on the heritage value of the place. Those places with a management category of A or B are considered to have the greatest heritage value and are also included on the City’s Heritage List. Places included on the Heritage List are protected under the Planning and Development Act 2005 from being demolished, altered or modified in any way unless approval has been granted by the City.

As part of the most recent review of the City’s LHI undertaken in 2018, the Memorial Church of St Martin in the Field and Durbridge Hall located at 50 Dyson Street, Kensington, were assessed and determined to be of considerable significance and therefore assigned management category B. As such this place was included on the City’s Heritage List and is protected. Since this time the church has been deconsecrated and the property sold by the Anglican Diocesan.

Application for demolition of 50 Dyson Street, previous advertising and feedback

In June 2021 the City received an application for the demolition of the Memorial Church of St Martin in the Field and Durbridge Hall. This application was advertised to the community between 2 July and 5 August 2021. Following assessment of the application and consideration of the submissions received, the City determined that it could not support the application for demolition while the place was included on the City’s Heritage List. In response, the owners of the property have submitted a request to reclassify the place from management category B to management category D and subsequently remove the place from the City’s Heritage List.

Documents submitted with the reclassification request

A heritage assessment was prepared by Griffiths Architects and a structural report by Quoin Consulting, both of which were submitted by the applicant with the reclassification request. The City subsequently engaged Hocking Heritage and Architecture to review these reports and provide a report with comments.