Saturday, July 10, 2010

Rule Of Thirds


Queenslander houses are a part of Brisbane's heritage yet Brisbane City Council seems hell bent on getting rid of as many as possible in order to squeeze blocks of flats in. There is a law in place to protect any pre-1946 dwelling... but unfortunately the council have acquired and bulldozed the house which stood on the right hand side of this picture a few weeks ago to build a roundabout. The act of doing this means that there are only two period houses left in this pocket of West End. Now here's the thing: some bright spark made a rule that if there are less than 3 pre-1946 houses in a cluster, the protection doesn't apply. So. Within a week of the council knocking down the house on the corner, a developer had swooped in, presumably offering a very sweet offer to the current owners, and the application to demolish the two house in the picture in favour of apartments is in the pipeline. 

Decision will be made by the council in two weeks.

4 comments:

Jim said...

These look cool.

Pauline said...

Agree to a point, the old queenslanders are beautiful and should be preserved. At the same time, it's not sustainable that EVERYONE should live in their own house or we would end up having cities growing so widespread. I think it is healthy that Australians have started to realise that living in a unit isn't that bad.

cara said...

Hi Pauline. I know what you mean. I live in a flat and there's nothing wrong with living in a small space to stop the urban sprawl.... My argument is this: starting less than 1km from here they are building enough units to house thousands of new residents but no plans for any infrastructure. The local primary school is almost full. This area of the city doesn't need any more units right now. Another reason is that these particular houses are in a prominent position. You can see them when you wait for a bus or a ferry or when you walk in the park and they define the character of the area. I dunno - maybe I'm being precious but I think it's real shame to just let them be whisked away without a fight.

Carola said...

These houses have character, beautiful Queenslanders. Sad story.

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