A comprehensive review of unprotected heritage buildings across Melbourne’s CBD has been adopted, securing the future of 126 buildings and spaces within the Hoddle Grid.
The Hoddle Grid Heritage Review was prepared for the City of Melbourne in 2020, recommending the protection of 137 buildings and five precincts built throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
It was the first comprehensive review of heritage buildings in the central city since the 1990s, carefully considering Aboriginal, colonial, contemporary, community, tangible and intangible heritage values.
Councillors unanimously backed the review at the Future Melbourne Committee meeting on 12 April. Following a meeting on 26 April, the heritage review has been adopted, providing a permanent heritage protection to buildings and locations within the Hoddle Grid.
“It follows many years of work by council officers, councillors, submitters and heritage consultants, as well as many more years of advocacy from Melbourne Heritage Action and others,” said president of Melbourne Heritage Action Tristan Davies.
The amendment protects many heritage buildings that Davies said people would “assume were already protected”, as well as a few pleasant surprises from the postwar era.
They include the Greater Western Hotel, a bluestone pub built in 1864; Melbourne House, at 354-360 Little Bourke Street; Flinders Lane between Spring and Russell streets; and the brown brick 13 Collins Street designed by Roy Grounds (who designed the National Gallery of Victoria) and finished by Austrian Jewish refugee Kurt Popper.
The new amendment does not inhibit future redevelopment of the buildings; rather, it ensures any future changes must be done with sensitivity.
The overlay will be applied to 126 of the 137 sites analyzed as part of the review.
