Expert Witness Statement by: Peter Andrew Barrett · Expert Witness Statement by: Peter Andrew...

Expert Witness Statement by: Peter Andrew Barrett Registered Address Level 31 120 Collins Street Melbourne For: Planning Panels Victoria Hearing With regard to a proposed site-specific heritage overlay to be applied to Belford Court, 54-58 Kilby Road, Kew East, as part of Amendment C306 of the Boroondara Planning Scheme Prepared for: Futura Developments Pty Ltd Instructions received from: Futura Developments Pty Ltd

Belford Court

Peter Andrew Barrett Architectural Conservation Consultant

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29 October 2019 PREAMBLE

Belford Court is part of a small shopping centre, and is situated at 54-58 Kilby Road (corner Belford Road), Kew East. Its shops extend along the Kilby and Belford Roads frontages, and a small L-shaped shopping arcade, extends between the two streets. To the west of the subject site, within this shopping centre, is four shops that were redeveloped in recent years into a mixed commercial and residential development.

The owner of the site, Futura Developments Pty Ltd, has commissioned this expert witness statement, which is in light of a proposal by the City of Boroondara to apply a site-specific heritage overlay to Belford Court, as part of Amendment C306 of the Boroondara Planning Scheme.

The purpose of this expert witness statement is to assist Planning Panels Victoria in a hearing to assess this proposal to apply site-specific heritage controls to this site. My qualifications and experience in the field of architectural history and heritage conservation are outlined below.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

I am a qualified architectural historian and heritage consultant. I have a Masters Degree in Architectural History and Conservation from the University of Melbourne. I also have a qualification in Architectural Technology from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

In 2017, I completed a program in urban design and Placemaking at the Project for Public Spaces in New York.

I am a member of Australia ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), and I adhere to its Burra Charter (2013). I am a member of the Pacific Heritage Reference Group of Australia ICOMOS, whose purpose is to provide advice to the President and the Executive Committee of Australia ICOMOS on cultural heritage matters in the Pacific region. Other affiliations that I have are membership of the Australian Architecture Association, and the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand. I have been involved in a range of heritage projects within Australia including heritage studies, conservation management plans, and heritage assessments of development proposals of residential, commercial, industrial and public buildings.

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I am a heritage advisor to the Alpine Shire, Latrobe City Council, City of Port Phillip and the City of Kingston.

I have undertaken heritage assessments and heritage studies for municipalities within Victoria including Glenelg, Wyndham, Moreland, Frankston City, Hobsons Bay and Maroondah councils.

I have appeared as an expert witness on heritage matters at Planning Panel Hearings for matters before the Minister for Planning, the Heritage Council of Victoria, the Victorian Civil & Administrative Tribunal, and in other forums.

I have worked on heritage projects in New South Wales and Tasmania. I have also been involved in heritage projects in the United States of America. In California I worked on heritage impact assessments and cultural resources studies of districts of Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2004, I received an exporters grant from Austrade for the provision of heritage services to the United States. In 2011, I was invited to speak at the California Preservation Foundation conference in Santa Monica.

I have written published architectural histories for the Public Record Office Victoria, the City Museum and for the Melbourne Design Guide. I have also been commissioned to write histories of commercial and residential buildings in Melbourne. I am the author of an online architectural history and heritage social media page.

The University of Melbourne, RMIT, CAE and other educational institutions have engaged me as a tutor and lecturer in architectural history and design. I have also been retained by RMIT to assess postgraduate-level architectural theses. Educational organizations, as well as heritage groups and the media, ask me to speak, or to comment, on architectural history and heritage matters.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

This heritage assessment is prepared with regard to the Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter, 2013, which is the standard of heritage practice in Australia. My assessment is prepared with regard to the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Practice Note 1, ‘Applying the Heritage Overlay’, August 2018. Within that document are the recognised criteria used for the assessment of the heritage value of a place.

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This assessment is based, in part, on two inspections of the subject site and its environs (interior and exterior) that were undertaken on 30 April 2019 and 21 October 2019. At the site visit on 30 April 2019, I also provided verbal advice to the owner’s planning consultant, Gintaras Simkus of Direct Planning. Inspection of other sites, relevant to the comparative analysis, was undertaken during the course of preparing this expert witness statement.

I have reviewed the citation for Belford Court, which was prepared as part of the ‘City of Boroondara Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study’, Vol 5, Kew East & Mont Albert (Revised [version] 15 October 2018) that was prepared by Trethowan Architecture in association with Context Pty Ltd.

During the course of preparing this expert witness statement I have undertaken research into the history of this site and other sites, using primary and secondary sources. Where primary and secondary sources are relied upon in this expert witness statement I have referenced them in footnotes.

SITE & ENVIRONS

The subject site is situated at the southwest corner of Kilby and Belford Roads, Kew East. The environs of the subject site are residential immediately to its south and east, with Post-war housing of various styles of this period, and differing scales. Immediately west of the subject site, in Kilby Road, is a pair of Post-war shops that are contemporaneous with Belford Court. These shops have been altered to have one-two additional levels, and they now form a mixed-use commercial and residential development. The mass of the three-level portion of this development immediately to the west of the subject site is stepped so the upper-level is set back.

On the north side of Kilby Road is the Eastern Freeway, which is built in a deep cutting in this location. Belford Road extends north across this cutting, the carriageway carried upon one of the expressive concrete bridges along the Eastern Freeway alignment designed by Bruce Day (1927-2015). Evidence remains of earlier landscaping on the north side of this part of Kilby Road, from prior to the construction of the Eastern Freeway in the 1970s.

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Belford Court, looking southwest from the intersection of Kilby and Belford Roads.

The Kilby Road (north) elevation of Belford Court.

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The Belford Road (east) elevation of Belford Court.

The subject site has a 16.4 metres frontage to Kilby Road, and a 33.5 metres frontage to Belford Road with a 4.2 metres splade corner adjacent to the intersection of the two roads. The south boundary is 19.5 metres, and extends along a rear right-of-way, that is accessed from Belford Road. The site has a fall in the land from the southeast to the northwest. Built upon the subject site is a complex of eight shops, with an L-shaped arcade entered from both Kilby and Belford Roads. The entrances have been partially altered, narrowed with newer partitions. A stepped parapet with two bands of manganese bricks, conceal the roofs of the complex. The shops on the Belford Road boundary are staggered at a slight angle to the site boundary. The shopfronts in Kilby Road are angled slightly towards the arcade entrance, this effect of emphasising the arcade entrance is diminished by the partition now partially enclosing the opening

A steel cornice with a curved profile projects from the two facades of the building. The cornice is stepped on the Belford Road boundary. The walls of the facades are finished in Castlemaine slate in a random rubble pattern, below the steel parapet. A similar effect is carried through to the walls of the shops in the arcade. The floor of the arcade is polished concrete of a brown tone, and the ceiling of the arcade is raked with chequered pastel-coloured ceiling boards in

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places, other boards are plain. The raked ceiling of the wider arcade leading from Kilby Road forms a shallow clerestory at the east side.

The yard of Belford Court, viewed from the rear lane.

Arcade leading from Kilby Road, looking south from its entrance.

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Arcade leading from Belford Road, looking east towards its entrance.

Shopfronts are chrome and have a manufacturers mark ‘Danby’ remaining on some. Signage with Belford Court is fixed above the entrance to the arcade from Belford Road. Most of the Belford Court signage has been removed above the Kilby Road entrance. A short passage leads to the rear of the site, where there is a small yard and a two-storey brick storage area accessed by timber stairs, and toilets. At the time of the site visits, some shops were leased, their occupants being a counsellor, personal trainer, physiologist and hairdresser. The balance of the shops are vacant, and are advertised for lease.

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ANALYSIS

Conservation of places of recognised cultural heritage value to Boroondara is to be encouraged, as it enables the community to understand its origins and identity. In putting in place heritage controls on sites and other elements, there needs to be a sound basis for the implementation of these, based upon an understanding of the site, its importance in the context of the history of Boroondara, and the core cultural heritage values that it intends to conserve.

In assessing a place against heritage criteria, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning ‘Planning Practice Note 1: Applying the Heritage Overlay’ (August 2018) requires a comparative analysis be undertaken of the place against other similar places to establish its significance.1 The ‘City of Boroondara Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study, Volume 5, Kew East and Mont Albert’, of October 2018, (hereon referred to as the ‘heritage study’) acknowledges the importance of comparative analysis in the assessment process, noting in its methodology:

Comparative analysis is an essential step to determining if a place or precinct meets the local (or State) threshold for heritage significance…

Comparative analysis is considered particularly important in deciding if a place is of architectural significance or of rarity value in a given area, but can be applied to most place types to determine their relative importance in a locality or wider area. For the purposes of the Kew East and Mont Albert Study, the suburb of Kew was considered the minimal scope for comparative analysis to establish local significance, but in most cases comparisons were sought more broadly from within the City of Boroondara, or even farther afield where pertinent comparisons were not found within the municipality.2

Although Planning Practice Note 1 requires comparative examples within the study area, I do agree with the heritage study’s methodology that broader comparisons in the metropolitan area be used, as they are useful in understanding trends in retail design in the Post-war period.

1 Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning, Planning Practice

Note 1, ‘Applying the Heritage Overlay’ (August 2018), p 2. 2 Context Pty Ltd, ‘City of Boroondara Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study.

Kew East & Mont Albert’, volume 5, Revised 15 October 2018, p 9.

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Some examples of arcades that are outside the study area, which are cited in the heritage study (Port Phillip Arcade, Melbourne [1961] and the Exchange Arcade, Geelong [1956]), are located in urban contexts that differ markedly to that of the subject site. Rather, it is suburban arcades and shopping centres that offer useful comparative value when assessing the heritage value of Belford Court.

Belford Court consists of shops along two street frontages, and some arranged around an internal arcade. The arcade is a retail typology that has existed in metropolitan Melbourne since the mid-nineteenth century. An early and fine example within Boroondara, is the Don Arcade in Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn (c1915), which links the railway station with the Glenferrie Shopping Centre.

In contrast to the early-twentieth century, where arcades were often linked to public transport nodes, in the Post-war period, with the growing ownership of cars, arcades and shopping centres were usually integrated with vehicle parking, highlighting a distinct shift from inter-war (and earlier) shopping centres that tended to rely on kerbside parking. It is noted in the heritage study the impact the car has had upon shopping centre design in the Post-war period:

Following World War Two and the huge increase in car ownership, both the existing commercial hubs and new developments had to be designed with the car in mind. Whilst new sites often set their shops well back from the street providing off-street car parking, existing strips sought to utilise areas to the rear, sometimes providing an arcaded link between…3

There are other examples of comparative value than those noted in the heritage study, and these exist both within and outside Boroondara, and are useful in comparative terms. In its comparative analysis, the heritage study cites The Mall, Mornington. In this region of Melbourne is another notable example of an arcade, The Heart Shopping Centre at Frankston, built in 1960-61. This combined an arcade of 14 shops and a supermarket with a rooftop car park for 80 vehicles. This complex, designed by Chancellor & Patrick, is believed to be the first of its type in Australia with rooftop vehicle parking above a supermarket and arcade, and demonstrates Post-war retail culture based around accommodating the needs of both customers and their vehicles.4 Another example, contemporaneous with Belford Court, is the Drive-In Shopping

3 ‘City of Boroondara Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study, Volume 5, Kew

East and Mont Albert’, p 155. 4 Bill Pratt, ‘The Future Comes to Frankston’, in My Safeway Story. Making it

Happen, pp 85-97.

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Centre, Ringwood built in 1953-54. Consisting of 14 shops, it had car parking for 100 vehicles at its rear.5

Shopping centres of a more modest scale, than those cited at Frankston and Ringwood, similarly accommodated for the car by the 1950s. Post-war groups of shops included recessed parking bays at their front, avoiding kerbside parking found typically in the inter-war shopping strips. The absence of dedicated or recessed parking bays at Belford Court can be attributed to the shopping centre forming part of an Inter-war, rather than a Post-war, subdivision. Examples of these smaller Post-war shopping centres exist throughout Boroondara. In addition to the one cited in the heritage study at 276-282 Doncaster Road, North Balwyn, a fine and representative example is a strip of shops in Karnak Road, Solway (Ashburton) of c1957 that incorporate car parking at front.6 Some shops in this group retain the original detailing on their shopfronts. Nearby to the subject site at Kew North, is a Post-war example of recessed parking bays at shops in Willsmere Road, which contrast with other parts of the same shopping centre built prior to World War II that has kerbside parking.

A strip of 1950s shops in Karnak Road, Ashburton, that are representative of Post-war shopping centre design with their recessed vehicle parking at front.

5 Argus, 24 June 1954, p 6. 6 Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directories, 1955 and 1960.

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A group of 1950s shops in Willsmere Road, Kew North, with recessed vehicle parking. This contrasts with older parts of the shopping centre with kerbside parking (visible at right).

In addition to the Camberwell (Morr) Arcade (1956) that is cited in the heritage study,7 there are other arcades within Boroondara. Burwood Arcade (c1960),8 in Toorak Road, Camberwell retains early shopfronts and has a raised roof creating a clerestory to allow natural light to enter from both east and west. The arcade leads to a rear car park. Further west from the Burwood Arcade, is another complex of shops at 1365 Toorak Road, which has four shops (c1955)9 angled towards a central walkway that connects to a rear car park and a medical centre. Ashburton Arcade (c1935) in High Street, has been extended in the Post-war years to remove a small cul-de-sac arrangement of shops in order to have access between High Street and rear car parking. Greythorn Shopping Centre, Doncaster Road, built as part of the Post-war Trentwood Estate by AV Jennings, incorporates a small arcade or mall. The shopping centre is comparable to the Frankston and Ringwood examples in terms or scale, and has a large area of car parking located at the front of the complex.

Detailing on the shops of Belford Court is commonly found on retail design of the Post-war period. The staggered effect of shopfronts

7 Argus, 25 November 1955, p 25. 8 Dutch Australian Weekly, 11 March 1960, p 16. 9 Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directories, 1955 and 1960.

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was used in the Post-war period to provide visual relief from long-glazed shopfronts. Examples are found on the Camberwell Arcade and the group of shops at 1365 Toorak Road, Camberwell.

Burwood Arcade, c1960, has a clerestory roof, which allows natural light into the arcade from the east and west.

Shops with a staggered effect at 1365 Toorak Road, Camberwell, which lead to a walkway to a rear car park.

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The shopfronts of Belford Court are of a fairly standard chrome frame variety, manufactured by a firm named ‘Danby’. Walls faced in Castlemaine slate was not an uncommon design response in commercial and residential design of the 1950s. The Belford Court arcade has similar detailing, with the addition of a pastel coloured raked ceiling. Pastels were a popular colour scheme in the 1950s, and a pastel coloured scheme is also described as being used on the Drive-in Shopping Centre, Ringwood.

In comparative terms, a group of shops at 1363 Burke Road, Kew, of 1954, are a superior example of Post-war retail design in comparison with Belford Court. It is acknowledged that they too are an addition to an inter-war shopping centre/subdivision, and consequently do not have off-street parking. However, they use similar finishes to Belford Court, but its architect, John Tovey, has applied these in a more creative way. The roof rather than being concealed by a parapet is expressed, which was common for Post-war shops. These shops in Burke Road are subject to a site-specific heritage overlay in the Boroondara Planning Scheme (HO607), and in my view demonstrate the benchmark for heritage controls for retail design of this period in terms of materials, detailing and overall composition.

Corner entrance at the strip of shops at 1363 Burke Road, Kew, designed by John Tovey (1954) show a superior level of detailing than Belford Court.

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A pair of shops of Post-war origin at 2-4 Tivey Parade, Balwyn, showing tapered walls clad in Castlemaine slate, with an expressive roof form.

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A group of 1950s shops in Taylor Street, Ashburton, with original shopfronts including pastel-coloured tiling and angled shopfronts.

Original shopfront in the previously mentioned group of 1950s shops in Karnak Road, Ashburton.

Belford Court is one of several examples of shopping arcades within Boroondara. Some other examples date back to the early twentieth century, and other contemporaneous examples equally represent 1950s arcade and retail design. Built on a site with only kerbside parking, Belford Court is less typical of other Post-war suburban

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shopping centres in Boroondara, which had a greater focus on Melbourne’s 1950s car culture by providing vehicle accommodation. Belford Court, unlike some other examples of shops, uses materials and detailing relatively typical of the era, and applied in a conventional manner.

In this respect, a building adopting a traditional typology (arcade), with standard materials (brick, chrome shopfronts and Castlemaine slate), applied in a manner ubiquitous on 1950s shopfront design (staggered effect of large glazed display windows), cannot be considered a building that is important in its representation of retail culture of the 1950s in Boroondara. Nor its absence of parking, unlike other examples in Boroondara, does it represent the 1950s inter-relationship with retail and car culture (Criterion A). Belford Court is not important in demonstrating both arcades and/or small clusters of shops within Boroondara of the Post-war period (Criterion D); nor is the design, when assessed against other shops of the 1950s, an important or distinct example in demonstrating the aesthetics of Modernist retail design in Boroondara (Criterion E). I agree with the heritage study, in as far as, Belford Court does not meet the thresholds for local significance for the other HERCON criteria (Criterion B, Criterion C, Criterion F, Criterion G and Criterion H).

CONCLUSION

On this evidence submitted in this expert witness statement, I have formed the opinion that Belford Court should not be subject to a site-specific heritage overlay in the Boroondara Planning Scheme, as it does not meet the thresholds of HERCON criteria for local significance.

DECLARATION

I have made all the inquiries that I believe are desirable and appropriate and that no matters of significance which I regard as relevant have to my knowledge been withheld from the Tribunal.

Peter Barrett Master of Architectural History & Conservation (Melb.)

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