Heritage Governance

The Office of the Victorian Government Architect in Australia provides strategic advice to the government about architecture and urban design. It supports government with advocacy and advisory initiatives, including design review, collaborative workshops, design quality teams, desktop reviews and input on briefs. One of its aims is to encourage awareness of the role of good design in protecting, enhancing and layering contemporary legacy in heritage places.

Lester and Reckhow (2012) – see reference below; write that the new economic reality of heightened international competition, constant technological change, and cross border migration flows—referred to in shorthand as “globalisation”—has upset traditional forms of governing capitalist economies.

Today (I received them on 9 March 2018), the National Trust has issued a set of Ethical Principles for heritage and conservation professionals. Allow me to state that Heritage 21 fully and robustly embraces every one of the eight principles listed below.

As planning matures it recognises an increasingly large set of multiple interests. Various planners (sic) have drawn attention to the multiplicity of interests inherent in a multicultural society and the relationships between this multiculturalism and the planning system. As planning theory recognises the legitimacy of a greater number of interests it also needs to recognise…

I often think about the degree to which both State (Heritage Act, 1977) and local government (EP&A Act, 1979) in NSW is committed to its own heritage legislation

In 2013, British Standards published its 2nd edition of BS 7913:2013. The publication is entitled: Guide to the conservation of historic buildings.

According to Mathias Ripp (Senior Heritage Manager and World Heritage Coordinator – ‎Regensburg University of Applied Sciences), our understanding of cultural urban heritage is changing.

Back in 2010, Duncan Marshall, a well- known heritage consultant in Canberra (Australia), undertook a review of the then current heritage management system in the ACT

In reality, who makes decisions about heritage buildings and places regarding change? At the local level, is it councils, owners, developers, private planners, architects or their clients?

Against the backdrop of cost shifting and rate capping in local councils, it remains extremely precarious for local government to balance the public and the private interest.

To make matters worse for the predicament of local government, there is a distinct trend towards State government centralisation. There are two kinds of central-local relations.

There is a funding crisis in local government. Councils struggle to meet the exigencies of their heritage portfolios due to under-resourcing and insufficiently trained staff.

There is resistance in the NSW heritage management system inasmuch as listees question the veracity their listings, the community resists having to pay directly for the cost of the heritage management system (HMS) and the government (State and local) expects owners to look

An upcoming conference in Montreal (7-10 June, 2016) hosted by the Association of Critical Heritage Studies states in the preamble that “heritage is a powerful witness to mindsets and zeitgeist;

In reality, who makes decisions about heritage buildings and places regarding change? At the local level, is it councils, owners, developers, private planners, architects or their clients?