Document title: Problems of heritage assessment: A case study of the Athe- nium (sic) Theatre, Junee, New South Wales. Author/s: Ross Thorne, Summary / abstract: Local shire and municipal councils frequently develop dreams of a facility or development that seems to preclude rational thought or assessment. This paper describes a few that came to light through public official inquiries into local councils but, upon being commissioned to write a heritage assessment of a picture theatre in a country town the author found that its council also had a dream. When the assessment was com- pleted and the New South Wales Heritage Office decided to heritage list the theatre, “all hell broke loose”. The paper re- views the tactics of the town’s local council that did not wish the theatre to be retained for community use, although the town had no similar space for the stage, cinema and social events. It describes the content of the heritage assessment and the reaction to it. Quotations are provided from the local newspaper and letters of objection. Key words: Heritage significance; Local government; Heritage assess- ment; Cinema heritage. Illustrations: By the author of the Athenium Theatre, and from historical sources. Original publication date: 2006 Original publication source: People and Physical Environment Research, 58-60, pp.92-122 Complete / extract: Complete paper with references. ISBN / ISSN: ISSN 1031-7465 Copyright owner: Ross Thorne 2006. Extracts according to Australian Copy- right law may be used with acknowledgement to the owner and original publication. Copyright is waived upon death of the owner with the exception of acknowledgement. 9 Problems of heritage assessment: a case study of the Athenium Theatre, Junee, New South Wales. Ross Thorne Introduction: some impediments to heritage listing Establishing the importance of cultural heritage of an item has its problems, not so much for the actual research but for the social environment in which that importance is bestowed; and, of course, the resultant reaction to that occurrence. In New South Wales there are two levels of heritage significance – state and local. Local councils are required to nominate places of heritage significance to be included in their Local Environmental Plans (LEPs). These places are not established in any systematic way as, say, had been done in Cleveland, Ohio. In that city’s central area of 733 hectares every street and place was assessed for buildings, sites and objects in 1987 and 1988, finally listing 1150 as heritage items. The city’s suburban areas were then assessed for heritage districts1. Local councils in NSW are frequently too small in population to afford anyone more than a “heritage adviser” for one half to one day a month. Some do not even do this. Suggestions for heritage listing on local environment plans may only come from members of the community – perhaps from the local historical society. Once on the LEP specifically, or within a listed conservation area does not mean that an item is “safe”. For example, the fine 1871-built Literary Institute in Bombala, NSW, is on the list of the local council but the council does not give the impression that it insists on basic maintenance by the owner of the property. Two other examples were provided in the editorial of People and Physical Environment Research No 57. One of those, the historically important Collins House at Palm Beach, suffered both from a lack of heritage expertise in a local council of a sizeable population (about 50 000 people), and a lack of sensitivity to heritage issues by the architects who proposed alterations, and at the NSW Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, to which the local council referred the proposal for advice. (Architects, as with many members of the general population may have an inappropriate idea of cultural heritage where it comes to buildings3.) The state government’s Heritage Office, with its relatively small staff accepts that it will be the National Trust, local community groups or individuals that alert it to items of possible cultural heritage for the state. Frequently this occurs when the building is under threat (for example, of closure, sale or demolition). When the privately-owned Saraton Theatre at Grafton was, in 1999, under threat from being demolished (and turned into a car park to suit the desires of a shopping centre developer) it was one of its employees who alerted the National Trust, thence the Heritage Office. Cleveland City Planning Commission, Cleveland Civic Vision 2000 Downtown Plan, Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland City Planning Commission, 988. Cleveland City Planning Commission, Cleveland Civic Vision 2000 Citywide Plan, Cleveland Ohio: Cleveland City Planning Commission, 99. The planner at the Pittwater Council spoke to this author in early 003, commenting on the Collins House. She said that she was not expert in heritage so sent the drawings of alterations and additions to the RAIA (NSW Chapter) for an opinion. The advice was that the proposed additions showed a suitable “adaptive reuse” of a heritage building. As a result the original building is almost obliterated thus losing its meaning as a heritage item. 3. Architects and the general public often assume that a heritage building has to be a “good” building according to their value judgment at the time. An example, previously cited, is the reason for much-respected architect, Harry Seidler, resigning from the committee set up to plan the Ultimo-Pyrmont peninsula in Sydney. The Sydney Morning Herald (3th March 995, p..) quoted him as saying that there were no buildings worth saving on the peninsula. Historian, Shirley Fitzgerald, however, saw a great many buildings worth preserving. They provided, for future generations, an idea of what the industrial, working class suburb was like in the late 9th and early 0th centuries. They were examples of cultural heritage. In this case there was a basic history of the building in the Movie Theatre Heritage Register for NSW 1896-1996 and the employee sought out more information from the local historical society and its old newspapers. For the subject theatre at Junee there was no such history. 93 This last-minute urgency to decide whether a building should be listed for its cultural heritage value does have some impediments. Frequently those involved in wanting to get rid of a building have a dream. Some will dig in their heels and show considerable angst at possible or actual listing. They have little in the way of creativity for viewing options for satisfactory use of the item. In the 1970s the Sydney City Council’s dream was to pull down the Queen Victoria Building and replace it with an open city square (as Lord Mayors had seen in European cities). Fortunately, activist pressure and change of the elected council produced the decision to seek options for re-use. As a result it became a unique shopping arcade and the building most liked by Sydney-siders. When conducting a public meeting on cultural facility needs (including a performance space) in the Warringah Shire (north of Sydney Harbour) a co-researcher and myself found one person’s dream was that Warringah needed a facility to “rival the Opera House”. Nearly 30 years on and the Shire (and its neighbour Manly) still has no large performance space. If adjacent rivalries of local councils could have been put aside before 198, and a moderate vision for the area developed, the adequate historic Odeon Theatre at Manly could have supplied a “town hall” performance space for the Manly-Warringah area. Instead, it was demolished. Liverpool Council (a south-west district of Sydney) had a dream of a sports centre that would attract big-name football and basketball teams to provide “role models” for young people in the municipality. The scheme escalated alarmingly and went horribly wrong. A Commission of Inquiry found a lack of probity and competence by Council and some of its officers, resulting in the dismissal of the Council5. In Walgett Shire (north-west NSW), the councillors that represented Lightning Ridge had a dream of a Community Centre that was entirely beyond the means of the Shire Council. As with Liverpool this dream took on obsessive proportions with some councillors wishing to deny what it would cost – even attempting to persuade the quantity surveyors who costed the project, that their calculations were wrong. A Commission of Inquiry into this Shire Council also found that councillors did not fulfill their role adequately, and the Council’s general manager was quite inadequate in performance of his duties. Dreams of this kind are quite different to a broadly encompassing vision for a town or local government area. One State Government officer has related how he had been to two country councils and asked them what was their vision for their respective principal towns. The towns had seen industry disappear and their populations decline, but the people who appeared to be attracted to standing for council wrung their hands and had no ideas. Frequently, if they do have ideas they are very conventional, such as attracting old-style industries, building a sports centre or attracting a commercial developer for a shopping centre. The officer cynically commented of one town, “If a polluting industry wanted to build in the town the council would jump to accept it”7. The same town, through bureaucratic adherence to rules devised by its council, and lack of flexibility by its general manager, has thwarted efforts by members of the community (not on council) to provide recreational and educational facilities for, particularly, younger members of the town’s population. This has occurred where the community group has obtained monetary grants and the blessing of the State Government. Such behaviour is in stark contrast to that in the former Bingara Shire (far northern NSW tablelands) where the general manager was a leader in assessing the assets of the town of Bingara.