A Necessary Discussion about ‘Heritage Significance’

Every single object, including buildings, are culturally significant. Whether the pen in my hand or the 19th century town hall down the road, absolutely everything has significance.

However, is it distinctive? Does it constitute a landmark?

Is it iconic, unique or legendary in its own right?

These are questions lacking from the usual considerations derived for heritage listing. For instance, I could argue that this cheap plastic biro in my hand is culturally significant, on par with the town hall building down the road. Yes, equally significant because the biro in my hand is a product of its time. If the pen were to be thrown out and a group of archaeologists retrieved it 200 years later, I have no doubt they would deem it significant. Inarguably, it represents an object pertaining to everyday use.

But where are the filters? For instance, economic viability, practicality of imposing a protection without foresight into the likelihood of the object or place being carefully looked after over time. Should every listing by the government be accompanied by a grant of money to pay for the conservation, including a dedicated Heritage Management Document (HMD) for every listed place? Viability is a big factor. Simply listing a place without factoring in urgent and long-term conservation works is meaningless.

In Australia, there is an assumption that a listing supposes that the place or item will be looked after and cared for by the owner. In my experience, this is certainly not the case.

In fact, it can go in the opposite direction. Wilful neglect and vandalism are two very worrying factors for the NSW Government. Yet, there are no policies governing the avoidance of such destruction.

I am a firm believer in an outcomes-based approach. If it can be determined that a place is not likely to be cared for or appreciated by the owner, then such a place should not be listed.

With World Heritage listings, there are many benefits for the local government, such as the promise of tourism. When a listed World Heritage place is not looked after, the listing is temporarily lifted and placed on a watchlist. For local listings in NSW, there is absolutely no monitoring, no watchlist and certainly no follow-up of any sort by councils and shires whose remit ought to be an outcome-based approach rather than a significance approach.

Then there is the dichotomy of private ownerships and public goods. A 2006 Productivity Commission document determined that 90% of heritage places in NSW are privately owned. This is well beyond the European Commission listings, such as in France, Italy and Germany. In those countries, private ownership is closer to 60% at most.

If we had taken an outcomes-based approach from the beginning, we would not have had so many listings as we do today – estimated at 40,000 places in NSW, including contributory buildings in Heritage Conservation Areas (HCAs). Unfortunately, built heritage has become a political football – kicked from one end of the field to the other.

In my PhD research some ten years ago, I worked out that if the government were to take an outcomes-based approach, including the granting of necessary funds to ensure that all listed places are properly looked after and protected, a likely tally for the State would be around $6 billion ($40K x $150K average cost). An impossible cost for the government, all things considered, and therefore unlikely to be put in place.

Besides, heritage is not the apple of the eye for the NSW Government as it once was. Compared to the 1970s-2006 period when most of the listings occurred, heritage has been viewed as a roadblock to new, in-demand development. We need to alter some of our considerations for heritage significance to ensure better conservation efforts for our heritage items. Otherwise, the archaeologists 200 years from now will be lacking a trace to follow.

Due to the haphazard LGA by LGA lists which grew at different rates and calibre, we have clusters of over-representation and in other cases droughts of emergent heritage. We need only select the very best examples and set high standards. We need to go back and de-cluster the over-represented listed stock. We need to find the most unique, design-excellent and rarest examples. Basically, we need a major review of the 40,000 LGA items that we already have at the local level. Especially now that we have a housing shortage.

There are a lot of heritage places of mediocre value that stand in the way of urgently necessary housing development. The recent Transport-Oriented-Development (TOD) pushed emphatically by the Minns Government is an example of a compromised situation. If there was less of the listed stock, there would be more room for newer buildings of less (historical) intensity than that comprised in the TODs. We as heritage consultants need to work with the new housing people and their committees, rather than oppose them. Let’s not be precious about the less worthy.

Paul Rappoport

Conservation Architect and Heritage Planner

6 March 2025

Image References

Short, Nikki. View of the collapsed building. Photograph. The Civil Engineer. May 25, 2023. Fire destroys seven-story heritage-listed building in Sydney | TheCivilEngineer.org

Sydney’s Inner West. Photograph. Homes Inner West. December 23, 2018. Community | Homes Inner West