News / Planning
Heritage body takes over historic chimney repairs
MP lashes owners over long delays to restore chimney
Mark Phillips
HERITAGE Victoria will begin repairs on an historic chimney at Brunswick’s Hoffman Brickworks to end a two-year stalemate at the site.
On Friday, Heritage Victoria announced it had been granted permission by Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny to conduct the repair works and activities that the chimney’s owner had been ordered to do more than two years ago.
The government body will then seek to recover the costs of the works from the land owner, property developer Ninety Four Feet.
The works will go some way towards securing the future of the 35-metre tall chimney – one of three at the brickworks and referred to as Chimney 1 – which has been bound in netting and scaffolding since the end of 2023.
The move by Heritage Victoria, while generally welcomed, prompted a scathing attack on the property owners by Brunswick MP Tim Read in Parliament on Tuesday.
Works on the brick chimney, which was erected in the 1870s, have been delayed by a legal dispute between developers Ninety Four Feet and Glenvill Homes and a scaffolding company, Stilcon Industrial Services or SIS.
Repeated orders to repair the chimney have not been complied with as the dispute has wound its way through the courts.
The second and most recent repair order by Heritage Victoria was issued on January 29 this year, following media coverage of Brickworks estate residents’ concerns about the safety of the scaffolding.
The order outlined specific works and investigations required to inform long-term repair planning including an assessment of the overall condition of the chimney, its structural stability once the scaffolding was removed, and making safe the upper portion of the chimney.
In August, following engineering advice that the structural stability of the chimney was not dependent on the scaffolding, Heritage Victoria issued a permit exemption to allow it to be removed.
The permit issued by Kilkenny on November 26 now allows Heritage Victoria to begin those initial repair works itself.
“The owner’s failure to meet the obligations of the repair order served on it in January 2025 empowers the Executive Director [of Heritage Victoria] to step in to undertake necessary works and investigations to ensure the future safe repair of the chimney,” it said.
“Exercising this provision of the Act is considered essential to conserve the property’s heritage values and to allow nearby residents and the broader community to safely enjoy the amenity of the chimney.
“The Heritage Act enables the Executive Director to recover the costs associated with the works and activities from the owner on whom the repair order was served. The Executive Director will seek to recover all associated costs.”
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In response to questions from Brunswick Voice to the company’s managing director Dean Rzechta, Ninety Four Feet said it remained “fully committed” to completing repairs to the chimney and blamed delays solely on the refusal of SIS to remove the scaffolding.
Ninety Four Feet, which is developing the land in a 50-50 joint venture with Glenvill, claimed it was co-operating with Heritage Victoria and was incurring additional costs to overcome the delays.
“We’ve worked alongside Glenvill Homes on this project for nearly 30 years, demonstrating our long-standing commitment,” Ninety Four Feet said.
“The delay is not due to any lack of action on our part, but a direct result of ongoing defiance to a court order by the scaffolding company … The permanent repair works cannot commence until the scaffolding is removed, which is necessary to complete the in ground and invasive investigative reports and finalise the repair methodology for Heritage Victoria approval.
“In our opinion, the chimney is repairable with these sort of works commonplace in a structure that over 100 years old and we remain focused on its safe and compliant repair.”
Read, who has repeatedly raised concerns about the chimney in Parliament and directly with the Minister for Planning, welcomed the intervention by Heritage Victoria.
But in a short speech in Parliament on Tuesday, Read did not hold back on his assessment of Ninety Four Feet.
“Ninety Four Feet have consistently failed to protect this heritage site over the years and seem to prefer to pay lawyers rather than bricklayers,” Read said under Parliamentary privilege.
“Residents stuck next to the scaffolding-clad chimney have been wanting to see it repaired for four years, since the scaffolding went up … I urge the Labor government and Heritage Victoria to go further, get the chimney fixed and make the developer pay for that as well, because they seem quite happy doing nothing.”
Save the Brickworks co-convenor Ruth Giles said the action by Heritage Victoria was a welcome step.
“These iconic links to Brunswick’s past should not be liabilities for immediate neighbours,” she said.
“We also recognise that Heritage Victoria and Merri-bek Council are in a difficult position where owners fail to meet their obligations.”
Merri-bek’s Deputy Mayor Jay Iwasaki, within whose Bulleke-bek ward the Brickworks are located, also regards the action by Heritage Victoria as good news that had been a long time coming.
“I’ve been attending meetings with residents and our local MP Tim Read for over a year now and it’s absolutely unfair on the residents how much work it’s been to get this issue the attention it’s needed,” he said.
Ninety Four Feet said it still planned to develop the south-west corner of the Brickworks for residential use but would not begin any works until the chimney was repaired and the heritage order was satisfied.
This story has been updated to correct that the Planning Minister is Sonya Kilkenny, not Harriet Shing.
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