People power leads to Heritage Order on 100-year-old Windsor house

Hawkesbury Council has listened to the people and placed an urgent interim Heritage Order on an almost 100-year old Windsor house.

Back in early December Windsor historian Carol Roberts asked Hawkesbury Council to place the order on the recently sold house in New Street because she feared is was likely to be demolished.

Council told the Post on December 9 that the house would be considered as part of a Heritage Study Review of all properties in the local government area.

That didn’t immediately protect the house, but following an outpouring of public pressure and representations – including from the local branch of the National Trust – the Council has now changed its tune and has placed an immediate Heritage Order on the house at 3 New Street.

“The Order was made in response to numerous community representations seeking to have the property, including the interwar dwelling, its interiors and the surrounding gardens, receive heritage protection,” said a Council spokesperson this afternoon.

It’s not a given that 3 New Street will be added to a list of properties permanently protected, but at least it stops any imminent demolition of the property.

“Council now has six months to consider whether to amend its Local Environmental Plan to formally list the property as being of Local Heritage Significance with appropriate provisions for protecting and managing the property,” said the spokesperson.

“A report will now be prepared and delivered to an upcoming meeting of Council for consideration.”

The California-bungalow style house in New Street, was recently sold for $1.8m.

Ms Roberts feared the house would likely be demolished and the plot potentially developed – it sits on a sizeable 1,163 metre square block – and she says the real estate agent told potential buyers it could be demolished – so she wrote to Council’s General Manager, Elizabeth Richardson, and asked her to place an urgent Heritage Order on the property.

“The house is of architectural and aesthetic significance to the City of Hawkesbury as a largely intact interwar dwelling in the Californian Bungalow style,” Ms Roberts said in her letter to Ms Richardson.

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