A 7-degree angle stopped this Elwood home extension, and exposed a heritage fight

An Elwood family has been blocked from building a single-bedroom extension to their home, which advocates believe exposes how heritage protections are failing to keep pace with efforts to boost modest development in well-serviced suburbs.

The application was knocked back by a planning tribunal despite having Port Phillip Council approval, only one objector and being opposite a three-storey apartment block near the Nepean Highway and Ripponlea station.

Home owner Kathryn Robson said she was stunned her modest second-storey addition was found to be visually unacceptable.

“It’s just ridiculous,” she said. “If we can’t build this, what can we build?”

Both housing and heritage advocates said the decision showed current heritage practice unnecessarily hindered efforts to accommodate Melbourne’s growing population in well-serviced suburbs.

Robson told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal the proposed extra room would act as a study for her son or a guest bedroom, which she later told The Age might have accommodated her elderly mother and freed up a family home in Glen Waverley where she currently lived alone.

But VCAT member Sarah McDonald said the proposal on Cyril Street diminished the 19th century heritage precinct and didn’t provide net community benefit.

Heritage Network Victoria founder Adam Ford agreed the decision was “unusual” and hinged on a strict interpretation of a council guideline for a setback second-storey atop a heritage building to be hidden when viewed from across the street.

Port Phillip Council’s heritage design guidelines say the top of a proposed extension, when measured from the existing building’s roof, cannot exceed a 10-degree angle.

Robson’s roof created an angle of up to 17.2 degrees, which VCAT deemed excessive despite the council using its discretion to approve the room’s height as it deemed the heritage streetscape was not completely intact.

“In many contexts, the proposed addition might be considered to be well concealed,” McDonald said in her ruling.

“However, the local heritage policy includes very specific policy guidelines for containing additions within certain sightlines.”

Ford said council’s failure to provide a more detailed report from their heritage assessor explaining their initial approval for Robson’s extension meant the tribunal reverted to the narrow sightline policy.

“I think this is the key area of heritage practice that most needs addressing to enable heritage to not act as an impost on densification,” he said.

“We should be worrying less about the visibility of any additions in residential areas ... and instead be invested in much more detailed policy around how those additions must interface with heritage fabric.”

Ford said it still “simply isn’t true” that heritage stopped housing like the pro-development YIMBY movement suggested, as the tight sightline rules which stopped this development often only applied to small extensions.

Ethan Gilbert, deputy lead organiser at YIMBY Melbourne, conceded Robson’s scuppered proposal was not an example of the large-scale densification which the state government has pursued to boost housing and affordability.

But he argued it still showed heritage rules broadly failed to respond to the changing needs of households, such as those wanting to accommodate elderly or young relatives.

“It shows the heritage system is in desperate need of reform and doesn’t account for the needs of modern living,” he said.

The objector to Robson’s proposal did not respond to questions from The Age.

Port Phillip Council’s heritage overlay for the Byron Street precinct argues it “is significant as the most intact, cohesive and varied evidence of Boom-period residential settlement in Elwood”.

In a statement, Mayor Louise Crawford said no changes to the planning scheme were expected in light of VCAT’s decision.

“Council’s decision reflected our planners’ view that the extension application fell within heritage provisions as, in their view, it was not an intact heritage streetscape given the different styles and eras of houses and flats in the street,” she said.

“Ultimately, VCAT placed a different weighting on the intactness and character of the street, and we accept its decision.

“We don’t believe this particular decision has wider implications for accommodating Melbourne’s growing population.”

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.