October 2026
I reported last year about the sale of these three houses in Riversdale Road Hawthorn, near Glenferrie, noting that only the 1900 red brick Edwardian one by Ussher & Kemp was heritage listed – and now there’s an application to demolish the other two Victorian ones for a 7 story block of flats, to be decided by the Ministers office under the Development Facilitation Program.
There’s plenty of local outrage, and Boroondara Council is going to consider the plans on Monday, but their planners are not proposing to try to heritage list the two houses – and I’m not surprised, they’ve both been altered by the loss of their original verandahs (though one has a rather nice c1920 Arts & Crafts style one), and there’s so many other more intact grand homes in Hawthorn, and ‘spot listing’ has to be approved by the Minister, and they rarely do.
The planners do however say that the development fails a number of points including : the 23.6m height where the zoning only allows for 13.5 (!), unsympathetic domination of the Edwardian house, doesn’t fully meet the mid rise code, and only proposes to pay a fee rather than actually provide affordable housing.
It looks like the Edwardian house is staying as offices/consulting, and the Gothic interiors arnt changing much, which is nice since they’re not protected.
Submissions to Council were due today, but the decision rests with the Minister anyway, and theyll be in caretaker mode from Nov 4, so maybe won’t be decided till after the election. Feel free to send the minister your thoughts ! Or you can go to the council meeting on Monday at 6.30, details on line,
This all goes to show the dangers of a process where the Minister decides everything, and nothing is off the table, with no appeals, and the whole idea is to allow much more and bigger, so developers just go for it.
All pics by Boroondara Community Group, sales and panning docs, and the internet.
