Council has scrapped plans to introduce a Heritage Conservation Area (HCA) in Federal, after nearly all the affected landowners indicated that they opposed it.
In a move which has led some to question the representativeness of the Federal village masterplan, a majority of councillors voted at last week’s Council meeting to abandon the proposed heritage protections, in favour of a beefed-up version of the current protections.
In June last year, councillors voted to begin the process of creating a Heritage Conservation Area in Federal, as a way of ensuring that buildings of particular significance did not lose their character through renovations, additions or other changes that break from tradition.
The 22 sites in the conservation area, along with an additional 24 sites sprinkled around the town, would have been subject to a particular heritage zoning that would have made such works unlawful.
However, when Council released its draft plans to the community for feedback, the response from Federal residents was a resounding ‘no’.
Forty-five public submissions were received during the 28-day exhibition period, and the vast majority did not support the proposed heritage conservation area, nor the additional listings.
Staff recommended that councillors abandon the heritage conservation area, and instead seek to beef up existing protections.
This included review of the Chapter E6 of the Byron DCP 2014 for the Federal village to come up with further controls to protect the village character of Federal.
Councillors didn’t bring the matter up for debate, unanimously voting to accept the staff recommendation.
Federal residents who addressed the meeting during public access said the proposal suggested that the Federal village masterplan, which spawned the idea for the Heritage Conservation Area in the first place, was out of touch with the interests and wishes of the community.
Property owner, Linda Hanock, told councillors and staff the whole experience cast doubt on the representativeness of the Federal masterplan process, and some of its recommendations.
‘Many of us contributed to the data gathering at workshops and so on. I applied to be on the steering group, but didn’t hear back’.
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