Life and the list

When Jeffrey Babcock looks out the window of his home in Pezula, South Africa, he can usually spot baboons foraging in the sub-tropical forest and bush buck walking amid the pink and yellow flowers. It’s a view that he cherishes and one that he expects to be long preserved since the land he lives on, part of the Cape Floral area, has been designated a Unesco world heritage site.

“You can only build on half an acre; the rest of the plot has to be returned to natural fynbos [natural shrubland],” he says. “It’s quite strict so you don’t get someone building a huge mansion.”

Pezula is one of 851 sites of cultural or ecological importance around the world that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has put on its protected list. Updated this summer, it includes everything from historic cities and landmarks, such as Georgian Bath, Fez’s medieval medina and the Port de la Lune quarter in Bordeaux, to newer buildings, such as the Sydney Opera House, and natural landscapes, such as the Grand Canyon and the Florida Everglades.

“The sites are of outstanding universal value, more than wonderful and quite unique to [their respective] countries,” says Unesco spokesman Roni Amelan.

The world heritage committee, which is made up of 21 representatives from UN member states, adds only 20 sites each year. These are places nominated and already championed by local, regional or national protection organisations. But being selected by Unesco is an important endorsement, presenting both benefits and challenges, especially for people who live in or near the designated areas. “A listing generates revenue, interest and tourism but it can also create pressure and the management of the site becomes an increasingly urgent question,” Amelan says.

With most natural sites, the aim is not to prevent development but to ensure that it is sustainable and sensitive. In Pezula, for example, the 255 planned houses are not only limited in size; they must also be located well away from wetlands and indigenous vegetation and incorporate features such as solar screens, rain storage tanks and effluent recycling systems to minimise environmental impact. Building exteriors are also painted in earthy colours with natural stonework so they blend into the surrounding park.

In older cities and towns, Unesco might insist upon no new building or, more often, sensitive renovation and construction. In Cologne and Vienna, for example, it recently blocked plans to build skyscrapers. “Unesco would never intervene at a nitty-gritty level of one building [but] we look at the overall state of conservation,” says Mechtild Rossler, Unesco’s chief for Europe and North America. “We have to work with developers and architects as they often do not really have a clue about world heritage.”

Though the organisation does not maintain sites and has no enforcement powers, the threat of an embarrassing de-listing, broadcasting the relevant government’s antipathy to the rest of the world, often prompts action. Of the many sites put on Unesco’s “danger list” over the years, only one – the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman – has ever had to be dropped, because the conservation area was reduced by 90 per cent. Dresden is the latest target for pressure; it could, Rossler warns, lose its world heritage status if officials allow a four-lane bridge across the River Elbe to be built, marring views in the surrounding baroque neighbourhood.

Not surprisingly, pro-development officials and property companies tend to have mixed feelings about the world heritage list. Many regard it as an extra, unnecessary influence that prevents forward-thinking projects. Emboldened by Unesco support, “some conservation societies wish to see their whole areas preserved in aspic”, explains Andrew Warner, chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors planning panel. But others, primarily outside big cities, see it as an advantage, drawing in more people, including homebuyers, making more money available for improvements and infrastructure and boosting property prices, while still helping them prevent unwise development.

Since the inception of the Unesco World Heritage Committee in 1972 it has been behind 26 international safe-guarding campaigns, occasionally provided seed money for emergency projects and raised almost $1bn from conservation donors. The historic canals and streets of Venice and Dubrovnik are just two areas where it has helped with restoration. Recognition can also encourage other funding. The UK’s 95-mile Jurassic Coast from Bridport in Dorset to Exmouth in Devon was listed in 2001 and has since received £750,000 from the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund for local projects. Over the next five years it will also benefit from £7.1m in South West Development Agency coastal fund money. The effects have been palpable. “It’s boosted regeneration and business,” says Sam Rose of Dorset’s county council. “Some towns are really behind it.”

In Lyme Regis, a market town and fossil centre, four-bedroom homes now sell for £400,000 or more, while charming two-bedroom terraced cottages go for about £250,000, about double their 2000 values. The lettings market, which used to fall off from November to March, is now strong throughout the year as well. “We’ve seen an increase in winter and international visitors,” says Sally King, Jurassic Coast tourism manager for Dorset. “We’re now on the world stage.”

Officials in the listed Val’Orcia in Tuscany are eager to capitalise on its Unesco status in the same way. They have therefore allowed projects such as the re-development of two beautiful stone 19th century manor houses and their outbuildings into nine luxury apartments and two townhouses in the protected area on the outskirts of the cobbled village of Montalcino. Planning rules are tight; the building exteriors must be maintained and only certain types of grass and trees can be planted. “They want the landscape kept as it is,” says Eddie Crompton, managing director of developer Realpoint Property. But concessions have also been made to cater for the hoped-for influx of holiday home owners and tourists; a golf course will soon be built nearby. Prices for the Realpoint project will start at €210,000.

Building work is regarded with more scepticism in previously unspoilt parks and forests. But, to take the Cape Floral region as an example, Unesco does not object to low-density projects, such as Pezula, where homes are priced from R1.3m to R4.3m (£90,000 to £300,000), and the similarly golf-centred Arabella, where three-bedroom villas start at R3m. “Arguably you cannot have anything but good-quality developments in a listed area because there are certain standards and restrictions which have to be met,” says Lyall Scorovich of Pam Golding Associates in South Africa. The good news for builders and buyers is that those guidelines limit supply and boost demand.

Like local governments and eager developers, long-time residents of a newly listed world heritage site also see advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, they might be annoyed by the crowds that Unesco recognition brings and any ensuing tightening of building rules. On the other, they enjoy the status and the fact that their homes, views and lifestyles have a better chance of being preserved. When Lavaux, an area of 11th century vineyards and villages on the shores of Lake Geneva, was included this year, “they rang all the church bells to celebrate,” Rossler says. “Developers wanted to build by the lake but with a Unesco listing the type and amount of building work will now be limited,” adds Jean-Frederick Jauslin, cultural affairs director in Lavaux. “It will give the shoreline and vineyards much more protection.”

In Port de la Lune, the historic French wine centre with squares surrounded by elegant neo-classical buildings, reaction to joining the world heritage list this year has also been positive, says Karin Maxwell of Maxwell Properties. “And it is sure to push up prices”, she adds. Two-bedroom apartments already start at €200,000, plus about 10 to 20 per cent for quality restoration, “but that keeps out builders who might do a botched job and [ensures] that everything in the town is homogeneous.”

Maxwell lives in nearby Saint Emilion, which was listed in 1999, and says she appreciates the fact that the town’s medieval ochre-tiled higgledy-piggledy roofs will never be marred with penthouse swimming pools. “There are no PVC windows and I couldn’t paint my shutters pink or anything; they have to be white and our roof tiles have to be a certain type,” she says. “And there is no new building.”

Of course, that does make her job, and that of other local estate agents, more challenging. “It is already difficult to find anything to buy in the old centre of Bordeaux and particularly Saint Emilion,” says Alexandra d’Epremesnil of Bordeaux and Beyond. Prices rose 12.1 per cent last year, pushing the cost of even a “tired” three-bedroom townhouse to €348,500.

Both she and Maxwell note that the areas benefiting most from a Unesco listing might be those that are nearby but not actually within a site. Fifteen minutes’ drive from Saint Emilion, for example, is Domaine Haut-Gardegan where Intrawest is building a faux French village of 400 one- and two-bedroom apartments overlooking a golf course and swimming pools. Prices – starting at £203,000 – are high for the area but the developer thinks it can command a premium because of its proximity to the protected town.

On the Portuguese island of Madeira, 66 per cent of which is a protected national park, there is no building allowed in the Unesco-listed Laurissilva Rainforest. But renovated cottages or barns next to it in the northern district of Porto Moniz go for €350,000-€400,000 and are increasingly popular. The halo effect even extends to developments further away. “The urbanised buildable area in Madeira is relatively small as the island is heavily protected,” says Roger Still, development manager of Palheiro Village, outside Funchal, where villas cost as much as €1.5m. “It can never become the next Costa del Sol.”

That is exactly the point, Rossler says. “With some cities, a listing is just one of a number of influential factors. But with others the increased focus can make a big difference. We have to take care that areas remain [part of our] world heritage.”