TWENTY-ONE Ipswich homes and buildings have been designated as character places by Ipswich City Council.
The list includes historic homes, pubs such as the Kerwick Hotel and Strand Hotel along with churches, schools and even the Goodna Police residence.
Ipswich planning boss Cr Andrew Antoniolli has outlined to the QT what the new listings will mean for the owners of the buildings now character listed.
It now means that they are subject to the provisions of the planning scheme as a character place,” he said.
“If they wish to make any alterations they need to come to us and we offer them the assistance of a heritage advisor to help them with those alterations.
“That service is free and it will assist them to ensure the character fabric of the property is maintained so that we don’t see a hodgepodge response.”
Cr Antoniolli said the council was “there to help, not hinder” owners to work their way through what could be done.
“And there are a lot of things that can be done,” he said.
“Ipswich has championed the adaptive re-use of many heritage, historic and character buildings.
“A lot of historic buildings in Ipswich have been converted into commercial space, particularly in the inner-CBD area.
“Adaptive re-use is a positive. Some people might see having a heritage home as not being beneficial, but it might be as an adaptively reusable commercial property.”
For those who just have a home not suited to such a re-use there is still the opportunity to do extensions.
“Those extensions will need to reflect the character of the building,” Cr Antoniolli said.
“There is a similarity between the term character and heritage but we have gone with the term character because it has a broader application.
“The heritage consultative committee brought up the proposal of looking at post-war homes and buildings.
“We decided to focus on the 1945 to 1955 period and during that time we also looked at a number of properties which we thought were post-war but we discovered were pre-war.
“Hence the reason we have 12 buildings pre-1946 and nine post-war homes included in the character places of our planning scheme, schedule two.”
Cr Antoniolli said as time passed, more regard would be given to post-war buildings.
“The post-war period did not see a proliferation of homes and a lot of those built were modest,” he said.
“However, there were some homes that were quite significant in their street appeal and the style and design of some homes at the time was quite innovative.”
Gazing through the list of 21 buildings now character listed, Cr Antoniolli noted the McQueen House at Flinders View which he said was “a very innovative design by an international architect”.
“Duce House and pergola on Brisbane Rd has significant street appeal and is a beautiful home from that post-war era,” he said.
Buildings to be included in schedule 2 – Character places
PRE-1946
- Blair State School – Blocks B, C and D.
- Brassall State School – Blocks A, B and C.
- Dinmore Murri Baptist Church
- Goodna Neighbourhood House
- Goodna Police Residence
- Hebron Gospel Hall
- Kerwick Hotel
- Raceview Congregational Church
- Salvation Army Citadel
- Former St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church
- St Joseph’s Primary School Fence
- Strand Hotel
MID-20TH Century
- Doyle House
- Duce House and Pergola
- Ipswich Kindergarten
- Jordan Village Pensioners’ cottages
- Lutvey’s Shop
- McQueen House
- Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church
- Rhondda Office and Carport
- St John’s Lutheran Church
Originally Published: https://www.qt.com.au/