Demolition work without approval

House is in inner Sydney (city of sydney council). Don't plan to sell for >10yrs time.

House has 2 x large brick freestanding chimneys. I am wanting to demolish them mainly to make room in the floorplan for renovations (enable me to put in BIR in bedroom; and expand kitchen in open plan area.

The house is weatherboard, has been butchered over the years, is not heritage listed/significant, BUT it is inside a 'heritage conservation area' / heritage overlay across basically the whole suburb (and neighbouring suburbs).

I don't believe demolishing a chimney (part of said chimney is an external wall part of the house) is 'exempt development'. Also due to this 'heritage conservation area' extra rules apply meaning you can't do works to a wall which connects to the wall at the primary street front (so basically; 3 of the 4 walls of the house you can't do work on). In fact, you can't even install an air con unit unless it is behind rear building line.

I am trying my hardest to want to push it through council approval and do things properly; but I just think the process is ridiculous, time consuming, costly and stressful. I fully respect actual heritage listed properties; but when the council blanket a whole area of about 6 suburbs with a special set of rules I think it is unfair.

The risk is council may notice at some stage; potential fine (??); may try to make me build it back (??). However, I highly doubt anyone would complain or council would find out. There is for sale listings online that they could easily get evidence from though.

I had a similar run in with council re two massive trees causing structural damage to my house and neighbours, faught council for 6 months. Had to spend thousands on special reports etc and they finally said yes to allow me to remove them. When I chopped them down no one blinked an eyelid and or complained. I fear this would be a similar process where I would need reports/evidence; DA lodge ($ cost), notification period, objections, conditions. Apparently council pushes really hard to retain chimney stacks/pots above the roof; but allows internal removal. Which would be ridiculously costly to retain a top part of chimney and demolish its supports. Engineer has commented that the chimneys are unstable/unsafe because of the damage caused by trees and significant repairs need doing.

1. could this affect resale value
2. what fines/penalty could I be exposed to
3. should I demolish them; get approval or write legal letter to council pushing for unsafe/dangerous/.

 

Well, you aren't going to make friends that is for sure.

With regard to the trees I would have not bothered with the council and encouraged the neighbour to use the tree act. Cheap and simple.

 

Tree act? Trees were on my property. There was no legal way to get the trees removed without council (I tried every loophole possible). I applied to council because they really were a no-brainer that HAD to be removed; causing significant damage to properties; WAY too big a species for where they are; yet council still carried on and took so much effort to convince to allow it.

I don't mind if I don't make any friends....I can cop a couple of k fine but rebuilding the chimneys would put me in financial ruin as would being taken to court over it.....

 

An example is Haberfield which lies within a conservation area, yes many houses have had their original features stripped and their intrinsic characteristics destroyed (rebricked, windows replaced with aluminium, leadlights removed, gables modified, plaster ceilings removed, roof pitch lowered, pathways straightened, chimneys demolished etc) - these are not sympathetic alterations but acts of b*****dry. Admittedly many of these 'improvements' were undertaken before the late 1970's when these things became important.

You buy a place warts and all - that includes any protections put in place to retain the character of an area.

Council has access to Nearmaps and their own GIS data, historical surveys etc

There have been plenty of instances where council have taken developers to court over the destruction of heritage items - end result has been that the site remains dormant for up to 10 years - whilst the property can't be rented, rebuilt and you're paying rates, land tax etc. The fines are ineffective it is the harsher punishment of not being able to use the property which sends most to the wall. Have a look at the corner of Elizabeth St & Hume Hwy Ashfield (this site was a heritage building but is now locked up for years - hmmm missed a property boom).

 

A shot of the same site a few years earlier.

 

Thanks for sharing. This would be an extreme example. Someone in Hobart demolished a heritage listed house and got 250k fines.

For me though the house isn’t actually heritage ‘listed’. I know if you build a structure without approval and council find out they can order it to be knocked down...what if you demolish something unapproved; can they make you rebuild it?

 

Yes but also prevent you from building anything at all on it for a long time.

 

I know the "right" answer is to follow the process... it's just frustrating they blanket a whole inner city area with these onerous planning controls preserving things like chimneys poking out of roofs and the like particularly on houses which have already been heavily 'baXXtardised".

City of Sydney - Online Business
Look at this example - yes I know completely different because the property IS actually heritage listed, but the poor buggers want to remove a tree causing damage to sewer/property in the yard which clearly is not adding benefit...yet for a $3k tree removal they need to lodge DA, heritage impact statements, talk about in the 1700s how Sydney was formed....etc etc, it seems ridiculous and overkill!

 

Even remnant heritage features are valuable in many instances.

One of the reasons that whole areas get a heritage overlay is because the ‘whole is more than sum of the parts’.

Ironically, the reason we have lost so many heritage buildings/heritage features is because of people with attitudes like yours think that they should be outside the regulations.

If you don’t like the conditions, perhaps consider selling up and buying somewhere else.

 

Absolutely nothing of any heritage value in that building @filipe

Substantial restorative works have been undertaken as well as a fair degree of adaptive reuse.

Oh, you have forgotten to mention that the site includes a block of units so this is probably a minor shared cost between all owners.

 

@filipe I'm going to go against the grain here and say you know the risks but it sounds like you want to roll the dice a little.
Live by the sword Die by the sword. If you think you can sneak it through without telling the council then go for it but if you get caught don't complain.

What if you just took the top of on earth of the chimneys off and left it for a month or so, if no one notices you could be in luck and if someone says something then you could play the "it was unsafe so we're having to re do it card"

I've got no real experience in this at all so this isn't advice