You are here: Home > Planning & Building > Planning > Protecting Heritage Buildings
Protecting Heritage Buildings
Heritage buildings, areas, landscapes and other places of heritage value provide a window to the past and to the origins of our communities.
Heritage places add character, appeal and interest to our cities, towns and countryside. Respect for our cultural heritage involves retaining and managing places that have importance to us as a community.
Identifying and listing places on heritage registers or lists is the first step in protecting and managing heritage places.
Identifying and Listing Heritage Places
Listing these places on statutory heritage registers provides a legal framework for managing the approval of major changes so that heritage significance is retained and not diminished.
In Victoria, there are three different types of statutory listing:
- National Heritage List administered by the Australian Heritage Council
- Victorian Heritage Register administered by the Victorian Heritage Council
- Heritage Overlays administered by Local Government
Various steps need to be taken before a place is entered on these lists and specific criteria must be met. The nomination process requires considerable preparation and research.
A place on the National Heritage List must be of outstanding significance to Australia, with only 29 places listed to date. Very high standards have been set for inclusion with examples of sites on this list including the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Exhibition Building, the Australian War Memorial and Port Arthur.
Places in the Victorian Heritage Register are considered to have statewide cultural heritage significance. Six places within the City of Whitehorse are included on the Victorian Heritage Register:
- The Box Hill Cemetery Columbarium and Myer Memorial, Box Hill
- Wattle Park, Burwood
- The Wunderlich/Monier Terracotta Roof Tiles Complex, Mitcham
- The former Wesleyan Chapel, Box Hill North
- The former Burwood School, Burwood
- The former Standard Brickworks, Box Hill
In contrast, 790 heritage places are protected by Heritage Overlays within the municipality. Heritage Overlays are contained within local Council Planning Schemes and assist in protecting the heritage of a municipality.
In addition to statutory lists, heritage registers are also compiled by organisations such as the National Trust and the Art Deco Society. Such community registers provide information on heritage significance, but they do not provide legal protection.
You can download the precinct guidelines for the Churchill, Mont Albert, Combarton and Black's Estate REsidential Precincts, as well as development guidelines for individually listed buildings by clicking on the following links:
Churchill St Precinct Guidelines.pdf (961.30kB)
Mont Albert Residential Precinct Guidelines.pdf (1.14MB)
Combarton St Precinct Guidelines.pdf (1,010.94kB)
Blacks Estate Precinct Guidelines.pdf (1,021.25kB)
Guidelines for Individually Listed Buildings.pdf (1.35MB)
Thomas Street Precinct Guidelines (719.16kB)
To find out more, visit www.deh.gov.au/heritage or www.heritage.vic.gov.au