Clearly, yes it is. And because a few obsessive compulsives form an emotive attachment to deathtraps? And nowhere more evidenced than in Christchurch in the south Island of New Zealand, which in an earthquake zone, turned out to be madness that cost precious lives?

Even reinforced concrete, which achieves maximum strength after around a useful eighty years, has a use by date, and decrepit buildings (ruins with roofs) must be brought down to make way for essential redevelopment.
Alan B.

Yes there is no reason to preserve clapped out old houses, just because someone built them, & they are old.

It does seem that there is a certain type of person, often a greenie, who want to dictate to the owners of property, what they can do with their property.

One thing I find very interesting is that it is the very same people who want to preserve "heritage" buildings that want to destroy our real heritage. They are the ones who want to change our form of government to a republic, change our flag, & turn our farmland back to scrub.

Could it be that "heritage" is merely a vehicle for trying to control everyone's lives.

Remember, this bloke has a financial reason for wanting to knock down and rebuild. It's all about greed.

Pray watch this demonstration of a Huge Bulldozer backing over Bob Brown's NIMBY pickup.

Also watch Sarah Hanson-Young's greenie trailer-home getting crushed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNblsQZugCU .

Feeling a bit Green around the gills?

:)

"Historical buildings" - what a joke, even the oldest building in Australia cannot be more than 230 old!

Compare this with temples and other structures in the Middle-East, India, China, Greece, England and South America, which stand for 2000-3000 years and over.

This must be part of a drive to force a fake Australian identity on us.

Regardless, I can well identify with the room-renting tenants: having a building-site next door is like the plague and we all wish that if this must be, then it should better happen after we are gone. I think that "heritage" for them was only an excuse.

Finally, the author writes: "We aren't forced to keep driving around and maintaining old cars simply because they're old". Well of course, the problem is that the opposite is happening: government regulations make it more and more difficult to drive and maintain old cars that are much superior than the junk they build today. The one way to revive the Australian car industry and make it commercially viable, is to allow manufacturers to build again 1960-70-80's models.

Yuyutsu,

If ancient civilisations started knocking down buildings 2 or 3 thousand years ago, there would be nothing to learn from or simply to enjoy.

Just because Australian buildings couldn't be more than "230 years old", that is no excuse to knock them down just because of your miserable attitude to Australia and everything about Australia. We are not allowed to have a history?

And what's this crap about a "fake Australian heritage"? There is nothing fake about it, you miserable whining misanthrope. I don't know what awful midden of a country you came from, but I wish you would go back to it, you idiot!

There are many buildings of significant historical and architectural significance which everyone supports preserving, however, I have seen a large number of ghastly buildings being preserved just because they are very old.

A friend of mine commented on one such building: "preserving this building as an example of our heritage is like proudly preserving the artifacts of ones great grandmother's career as a prostitute."

'nuff said.

In answer to the question Is heritage going too far? I cannot comment much on the Qld situation as I only have what's in this article to go on, but It is always contentious when a development proposal collides with community lobbying for heritage protection - and in these situations all factors including condition of buildings should be examined. In NSW heritage protections have been wound back so that we are heading back to the 1960s. In particular, due to the action of the "exempt & complying" development rules, there will be almost no new heritage conservation areas in future, as these rules allow demolition without a DA outside of existing heritage areas (unless asbestos is involved), leading to constant erosion of built character outside of areas under existing heritage protection. In relation to zoning, both heritage items and heritage conservation areas can now be inappropriately zoned - for example zoned to allow townhouse development or apartments, which are directly contrary to the concept of retaining heritage buildings - where zoning is inappropriate basically we're back to the era of "insure and burn" due to the difference between the level of development a heritage building represents and what the zoning would allow were the same site vacant. The irony is, as people are willing to pay higher prices for houses where they can live in peace, free of the threat of having new development springing up next door and consequent overshadowing and privacy impacts, houses in heritage conservation areas in Sydney are always worth more than similar houses in the same suburbs not protected by heritage conservation area controls. Sydney is being remade right now as a high rise city and heritage protection of some areas ensures that not everyone will have to live in apartments in future.