Preserve our heritage: Local historian says building should be part of town’s cultural offering

Local contractor John Byrne has submitted a Development Application (DA) to Young Shire Council to partially demolish the old premises at the corner of Campbell and Berthong Streets, on behalf of owner Angelo Doukas.

The DA, currently on public exhibition at council offices until Friday, June 28, seeks to demolish the former hospital, dining room, workshop and shed.

The old chapel and convent — which gets used as a backpacker hostel during the cherry picking season — will remain.

The property, an investment for Mr Doukas, is in poor condition and has been heavily vandalised over the years with Mr Doukas spending vast amounts of money on security.

It is council’s understanding Mr Doukas would like to eventually sell the cleared land.

Mr Kinsela, a heritage consultant, would rather see the buildings converted to a museum or serve as a new premises for the Young Regional School of Music – both stretched to capacity at their current locations – than let it disappear. 

Or, as he suggests, make it an arts and cultural centre.

The Mercy Care Hospital – formerly called Sacred Heart Hospital up until the 1960s – was built between 1911 and 1913.

The building is not heritage listed nor is it listed in Section 5 Environmental Heritage on council’s Voluntary Heritage List – which contains 125 items – in their Local Environment Plan, but Mr Kinsela believes it should be.

“Because I can find a use for it,” he said. “Heritage is about the memories over the last 100 years.”

Mr Kinsela would like to see council reject the DA and concentrate on what they could use it for, including perhaps rebuilding the interior but retaining the exterior.

“They should start to address the situation of the current museum, they’re overcrowded … we can’t introduce modern services to the Lambing Flat Museum like lighting or climate control because of their 18 foot (5.5 metres) ceilings and large windows,” he said.

“We’re trying to get tourism here – don’t knock a building like this down and build units. Who would like to see units on the best side of the town?”

“We need to think in 30-40 years’ time what Young could be,” Mr Kinsela said.

Council’s planning, environment and strategic services director Craig Filmer said the building is something council seriously looked at five to six years ago.

“We didn’t do anything then because, at the time, it didn’t meet with our budget or occupancy,” Mr Filmer said.

“We don’t take these things lightly.” 

Mr Filmer said council knew the chapel and convent had varying degrees of heritage value and the nurses quarters and building on the corner included in the DA had “potentially lesser degrees of heritage”.

The development application is open for written submissions until July 1.

Council’s general manager Peter Vlatko said, in most cases, objections to a DA normally related to neighbours of a proposed development.

He believes this particular development would attract a lot of attention from members of the public.

“He [Mr Doukas] owns it, we can’t stop him because he wants to use it for something else,” Mr Vlatko said.

“And people can’t object to it just because they were born there.” 

Mr Vlatko said if people wanted to object to the proposal based on heritage reasons, they would need to justify the heritage, such as cultural, periodical, religious or architectural. 

“[Overall], objections need to be based on “reasonable planning grounds,” he said.

Mr Vlatko said if there were heritage issues concerning the DA, the applicant would have to address those.

He said heritage reports in DAs were usually conducted by council, with the help of experts.

“It is a very costly building to maintain [and] has been sitting there for a very long time not being used – it would be cheaper to build a new museum,” Mr Vlatko said.

“We can’t assume, we can’t guess – all we can do is follow the norm, look at application and listen to objections.” 

Mr Filmer added:“It is one thing to buy it and another thing to renovate.”