Amendment C214port - Proposed Heritage Overlay for 21 Dorcas Street, South Melbourne (Interim Controls)

Amendment C214port to the Port Phillip Planning Scheme seeks to give statutory effect to the findings of the 21 Dorcas Street South Melbourne Recommendation Report and apply Heritage Overlay 562 to 21 Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, on an interim basis (one year).

This amendment for interim controls was lodged in response to two applications to demolish the building at 21 Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, were received by Council pursuant to Section 29A of the Building Act 1993 on 3 July 2023 and 8 August 2023. Since no Heritage Overlay applies to the land, a planning permit for demolition was not required.

Given the identified heritage significance of the house at 21 Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, and the immediate demolition threat, on 24 July 2023 Council officers, under delegation, requested that the Minister for Planning apply an interim heritage overlay using their powers under 20(4) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987. The Minister is yet to make a decision on the request.

An interim heritage overlay may be requested while the process to apply the heritage overlay on a permanent basis (via a planning scheme amendment) is underway. Lodging the request for an interim allowed Council officers to put a stay on the demolition requests until a decision has been made by the Minister for Planning.

An interim Heritage Overlay does not prevent demolition, but it triggers the need for a planning permit application for demolition or any works that change the appearance of the heritage place to ensure that heritage matters are considered.

As part of Council’s on-going commitment through its Heritage Program to identify and protect places of heritage significance in Port Phillip, Council has commissioned a review of the potential heritage values of a number of individual places in South Melbourne. This review included 21 Dorcas Street, South Melbourne.

While that Review is on-going, the findings for 21 Dorcas Street, South Melbourne are included in the 21 Dorcas Street, South Melbourne Heritage Report and Place Citation (Trethowan Architects, 2023). The Report Identifies that 21 Dorcas Street is of local heritage significance to Port Phillip as it is:

• Historically significant as a rare surviving example of housing in this part of South Melbourne, developed at the turn of the twentieth century (Criterion A)
• Of representative significance as a good and largely intact example of a Federation period house built in a transitional style, demonstrating the continuation of the Victorian residential idiom into the early twentieth century.

The report recommends the property be added to the Heritage Overlay.

A planning scheme amendment is a statutory process set out in the Planning and Environment Act 1987, and is required in order to apply a heritage overlay to a property. The process can take approximately 12-18 months and provides opportunity for landowners and interested persons to make submissions via the Public Exhibition process.

More information about the process can be found here: Amending a planning scheme).