Currently our community is experiencing development which appears to totally contradict heritage guidelines.

It seems you can write-your-own guidelines; developers only have to find a precedent and immediately that precedent becomes accepted practice.

Precedents can be for any number of reasons; they are not the process by which new guidelines are formed.

If this were the case, why bother with guidelines at all? Guidelines are there to guide your decision. Precedence should not be a factor in deciding the merit of a case.

But this is only part of the story in what has emerged as a comprehensive undermining of all heritage protections.

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Currently many design rules/guidelines are deliberately designed so that they are open to interpretation, that is - they are "designed to fail".

So instead of a definite line in the sand, interpretation allows guidelines to be undermined contrary to their intention.

To ensure community support of any project, it is important to demonstrate that you have consulted the community.

This must not be confused with the possibility that the community will get the chance to impact significantly on the project.

Community consultation is now often restricted.

Before the community has the chance to comment, the scope of the consultation is set at a point where no genuine change can occur. The ploy here - don't ask until you have reached the point of no return.

Another component of this "designed to fail" heritage protection system is to ensure that the cost of challenging any decisions is so expensive and intimidating that few are able to take their case to VCAT.

Planning rules that are the same whether you live in Nyah West or Fitzroy are convenient for some and totally inappropriate elsewhere.

Combine this with new rules giving the minister more power over certain projects ensures that council and local concerns are a very low priority.

One consequence of this process is that in Ballarat we now have The Big Brown Box (aka GovHub) and it is possibly quite a nice brown box except it is in a Victorian streetscape; it dominates the skyline from all directions. It did not need to go in this area and according to most guidelines you would think this was not possible within this intact heritage precinct. Yet given interpretation of the guidelines, there it is. Scale totally inappropriate.

Now instead of a view across the city with three spires we are about to get more six-storey buildings and the whole character of Ballarat as a Victorian/Edwardian city will be compromised. Yet we are surrounded by open land.

Ballarat is important, not just because of Eureka but because it is a living social history and an architectural gem.

A significant percentage of Australians who are fifth generation will have an association with Ballarat and this connection can still be physically found in the streets of Ballarat.

We need strong, real heritage protection rules designed to protect, not rubber rules flexible for some. Most importantly there must be the will to enforce them.

Dinah McCance, Ballarat East