News / Planning
Residents want to see action on Brickworks chimney
Scaffolding has become a safety hazard, they claim
Mark Phillips
RESIDENTS of the Hoffman Brickworks estate in Brunswick are demanding action on a landmark chimney that has been covered by scaffolding for more than two years.
Frustrated that the century-old chimney has not been repaired and the scaffolding removed, they have launched a petition to State Parliament to put pressure on Heritage Victoria to force the owners to comply with its orders.
They say the chimney has become an eyesore and the longer it is not maintained, the greater the public safety threat it poses.
“Imagine if part of it fell on someone’s house, or someone climbed it and fell off or, worse still, jumped off,” said Abigail Nelson, who lives in Brickworks Drive and has drafted the petition with her father, Mark.
“It’s been there three years and it’s so bad and dangerous. We don’t want another civil dispute or more court hearings, we just want them to fix it.”
The chimney is the westernmost of three that were part of the historic original brickworks that operated from the 1870s to the early 1990s.
The other two chimneys have been incorporated into the redevelopment of the brickworks’ kiln buildings as housing.
The scaffolding was erected in early 2022 as a precautionary measure after inspection of the chimney found some loose bricks and other structural damage.
Around the same time, one of the remaining historic buildings on the site, the Steam Engine House, was demolished after years of neglect.
Residents at the time expected the scaffolding would be temporary while repairs were carried out, but nothing has happened. To make matters worse, a large open area of the brickworks has subsequently been fenced off as a further safety measure, restricting access and movement and blocking a fire escape.
Dozens of residents have also been slugged with increased insurance costs as a result of the unrepaired chimney.
The chimney is owned by Balaclava-based property developer Ninety-Four Feet, which is connected to Sungrove Corporation, who were accused of “demolition by neglect” of the former Steam Engine House on the corner of Brickworks Drive and Dawson Street.
In late-2021, Sungrove successfully applied for an order from Heritage Victoria to completely demolish the building after engineers reported it had deteriorated to such an extent it could not be salvaged.
Now some Brickworks residents fear the chimney could suffer the same fate if repair work does not begin soon.
Both Ninety-Four Feet and Sungrove are controlled by the Rzechta family.
Related story:
In June last year, Heritage Victoria issued an order for the chimney to be repaired, but no work has taken place with Ninety-Four Feet blaming a legal dispute with the scaffolding company for the hold up.
Merri-bek Council says that while the scaffolding remains in place, the chimney is considered stable.
Abigail Nelson said the petition had been launched out of frustration at the ongoing lack of work on the chimney.
She said she had become increasingly worried by people climbing the scaffolding dozens of metres into the air, while plastic mesh wrapped around the scaffolding had ripped and become a hazard on windy days, and metal fencing at the base of the chimney was blocking access to a fire escape from a nearby apartment building.
“It’s so disrespectful of the developer to come in and cause such a mess in the neighbourhood,” she said.
“Putting scaffolding on in the first place is very dangerous and it’s just created a climbing structure which stays there.
“They put chipboard around it two years ago to stop people climbing but most of that has fallen away. We’ve seen the police arrest people for climbing it.”
The petition, which currently has 195 signatures and is sponsored by Brunswick MP Tim Read, carries no legal force, but is an attempt to draw attention to the long delay in repairing the chimney.
“The absence of progress and existence of temporary work site has a negative impact on local residents, the neighbourhood amenity and poses an ongoing safety risk with unauthorized visitors regularly scaling the scaffolding ,” it says in part.
Read said he had been in regular communication with Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny, who oversees Heritage Victoria, about the state of the chimney.
He said he had been told that in mid-October Heritage Victoria had served a show cause notice on the owners requiring them begin commissioning engineers and heritage consults to repair the chimney and make it safe. This came after Heritage Victoria was informed that the legal dispute between Ninety-Four Feet and the scaffolding company had been resolved.
Ninety-Four Feet was supposed to provide a response to the show cause notice by early in November.
Read said he was concerned that the longer the chimney was left unrepaired, the more it could deteriorate.
“I don’t know anything about the structural integrity of the chimney, but I think, particularly with this developer, that there’s a risk of demolition by neglect, which is always a problem in this electorate,” he said.
The chimney saga has had an additional side-effect for dozens of residents of increasing their building insurance premiums by more than 26% over the past 12 months.
Kirill Kliavin, who lives in one of the former kilns that have been converted into apartments, said residents were paying the price for the increased risk caused by the lack of repairs to the chimney.
Fifty-seven apartment owners, who contribute to joint insurance through their owners’ corporation, have been impacted, he said.
“We’re paying for someone’s negligence,” he said.
To add insult to injury, he said Ninety-Four Feet paid barely any owners’ corporation fees and had threatened to begin charging residents for parking in an open air car park on land it owns.
New Bulleke-bek ward councillor Jay Iwasaki said the condition of the chimney had been raised with him numerous times during the recent election campaign and he would investigate what options were available to the council to get the owner to comply with Heritage Victoria’s orders.
But he said the council’s powers were limited.
“It’s been an absurdly long time,” he said. “If there’s something the council can do, I will make it one of the top things on my agenda to follow up on.”
Neither Heritage Victoria and Ninety-Four Feet responded to questions from Brunswick Voice.
Support independent local journalism
We are an independent hyperlocal news organisation owned and run by the people in your community. With your support, we can continue to produce unique and valuable local journalism for Brunswick and the inner north of Melbourne.
