![Work continues around the cottage at the back of the Galkangu govhub building. Picture by Brendan McCarthy. Work continues around the cottage at the back of the Galkangu govhub building. Picture by Brendan McCarthy.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/Tom.OCallaghan/45c6d179-ba31-4add-bee8-767d46f3ffcf.jpg/r0_0_4700_3133_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A COTTAGE "erroneously" branded heritage should be demolished to make way for works on the new govhub building, council officers say.
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The City of Greater Bendigo wants to rip down the red-brick building to make way for vehicles out the back of the soon-to-be completed Galkangu build, on Lyttleton Terrace.
It has asked its planning department for a demolition permit despite the building's official status as locally significant.
Council heritage officers believe incorrect information helped get heritage citations for a cottage built in the 1930s at the earliest, not the 19th century as once assumed.
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The cottage should not be confused with the former Doherty's Garage, which sits next door.
That building's heritage credentials have not been questioned and it does not face demolition.
Heritage doubts have swirled for years
Doubts about the other building's heritage value were circulating as recently as 2021, when elected councillors overruled a push to drop it from a list of buildings needing citations in Greater Bendigo's planning scheme.
At the time, councillors were trying to work out whether a host of buildings should be included in paperwork destined for the Victorian planning minister's desk.
Their heritage officers might have been convinced the cottage did not need protections but they could not sway enough people around the council table.
![Image courtesy of Google Earth. Image courtesy of Google Earth.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/Tom.OCallaghan/9dfd5b5d-53ed-4210-8189-0e91419ab485.PNG/r237_121_972_524_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Cr Andrea Metcalf was among those uneasy with the idea of ruling the cottage out of heritage contention given the questions still swirling at the meeting.
"It is not for me to decide," Cr Andrea Metcalf said as she moved a successful motion taking the ruling out of councillors' hands.
The apparently mistaken statement of significance was among a host of Bendigo planning scheme updates eventually gazetted in February 2022.
Building mimics earlier cottage's features, council experts say
Time has not diminished the heritage experts' confidence the cottage is not a remodelled 1870s building.
They maintain that the cottage is not "rare physical evidence" of a market square and working-class homes that once stood in the area, as the citation in the planning scheme characterises it.
Council staff say the building currently standing there might mimic some features of an earlier building but its position and roofline are different.
That would mean it could not have nearly as many links to the Chinese, Indian and Italian labourers and traders using the now defunct market nearby, along with other claims about its heritage significance.
It would not undermine the building's links to Doherty's Garage, though. Owners of the nearby garage used the cottage for storage from the 1970s to 2018, when they closed their business.
Council officers want to drop the mistaken heritage citation in a fresh round of planning scheme amendments expected later this year, according to a document submitted in the council's demolition permit application.
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