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.