Is the protection of historic housing concerned with built heritage, or is it another means of excluding people from prestigious neighbourhoods? Research to be published soon in Urban Studies tracks the fates of almost 6000 houses in Brisbane constructed prior to 1946.
Many cities debate how to balance the preservation of built heritage with the housing needs of a growing population. Conservation overlays or “character” zonings are widespread across Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
Character zonings are different from heritage protection as they are generally enforced by planning authorities and allow alteration to the existing building.
Character zonings purport to “protect neighbourhood character” by requiring owners to retain certain houses. Preservation of these older buildings tends to prevent redevelopment of existing low density building and ensure that any new construction is of a similar scale.
Neighbourhoods targeted for increases to residential density are often close to the central city, public transport infrastructure and high amenity areas such as waterfronts. These are established neighbourhoods with older housing stock, making them targets for both high density and built heritage protections.
The conflict between densification of existing urban areas and the preservation of historic houses typologies is compounded by the exclusionary nature of zoning more generally. The term exclusionary zoning features largely in American literature. It refers to any form of land use zoning that prevents low to middle income households from finding housing.
While land use zoning cannot explicitly dictate who can live in a certain area, it can be an effective means of social segregation by increasing the cost of building or maintaining housing.
In Brisbane, character houses are those constructed prior to 1947. They are generally single-family, detached and colloquially referred to as “tin and timber houses” or “Queenslanders”. The architectural styles vary from traditional high-set Queenslanders with wrap-around verandas to other styles such as Californian bungalows. Under Brisbane’s current planning scheme, character houses can be extensively renovated but cannot be removed.
Unlike other Australian cities, Brisbane’s architectural heritage exists largely in its private housing stock. Once called the “demolition capital of Australia” many of Brisbane’s historic public buildings were demolished in the 1970s and 1980s.
During this time, pre-1946 houses were considered slum-like, and the Brisbane Town Plan allowed their demolition. Protections against removal of these houses were introduced in Brisbane from the 1990s, initially applying to select properties within four kilometres of the city centre. Protection gradually expanded to include most houses constructed prior to 1946.
To analyse the impact of these preservation policies on redevelopment, we selected five study areas containing houses built before 1946, in both character residential and other zones. Each study area is located within 10 kilometres of Brisbane’s city centre. Three (South Brisbane, Woolloongabba, and Newstead) are adjacent to the city centre and two (Nundah and Indooroopilly) were identified as major centres in the Brisbane Town Plan 1987.
The current planning scheme allows new dwelling construction in many character areas, but only if the development incorporates the existing house and is of a similar scale. We found that character protections are a form of exclusionary zoning that restricted the development of multifamily housing like apartments, even on properties where densification was encouraged.
The research results provide insight into the impact of fluctuating urban planning trends. Many pre-1946 houses were demolished prior to 1987, as more flexible zoning encouraged new development like apartments.
By 2021, 29 per cent per cent of properties still contained a pre-war house, with the remainder containing commercial services like shops and offices (20 per cent) and multi-family buildings like apartments (47 per cent). There were 695 pre-1946 houses that were in zones that allowed for redevelopment, but their owners had chosen to retain the house.
Just 1 per cent of lots that allow for medium to high-rise development still contain houses. In comparison, lots in the character zone, which allows densification that retains the original house, had limited uptake in the opportunity to add extra dwellings.
Minimum lot sizes and maximum dwelling yields limit new dwellings to additional houses, rather than townhouses or apartments.
The default position of character protection is protection from demolition or removal based on the age of the structure rather than specific architectural traits, and the policy does not apply to all pre-1946 houses. Instead, it applies to select areas based on neighbourhood zoning, and significant modification to character houses allowed under the existing planning scheme. There are clearly exclusionary implications of this policy. The question therefore becomes “what character are we protecting?”. Our research indicates that character protections are less about built heritage, and more about social segregation.
The conflict between densification goals and the preservation of historic housing makes planning decisions highly political, and policymakers should be cautious of extending preservationist policies across a local government area.
There is an argument that preservation should be a targeted policy affecting properties with specific architectural or social history traits, especially if the underlying impetus of conservation is not to limit housing diversity.
