Heritage means different things to different people, and whilst 'history' is about the past, 'heritage' is about the future.
Fifty years ago, and still to many people today, heritage was simply old and glamorous looking buildings. Perceptions of heritage are evolved considerably.
Nowadays, for many within our community heritage it is about ancestry and connection to land or place, about landscapes (ancient or modern), trees or ruins.
To others it may be objects and photographs, or traditions.
Just as our community is made richer by its diversity of ethnicity and cultures, we need to acknowledge that others may see their heritage in differing forms than ourselves, and celebrate the richness that brings.
The common thread across all perceptions is that heritage is about the stories that give us a sense of the past and of who we are - our cultural identity - which we wish to pass on to current and future generations. This applies to all from the Traditional Owners to the latest migrants and refugees who have joined our community.
Understanding cultural identity is essential to the well-being of our people. The landscape setting of a gathering place, a view to a sacred peak, a building or structure, an artefact or object, a document or image, physical evidence of these sorts may help reinforce and connect those stories to our environment and people.
We manage heritage on a land and environment level - through the planning scheme and management of its reserves and built assets; on a collections level - through the management of objects and artworks; and on a documentary resource level - through managing historical images, papers, etc.
A common myth is that heritage is about freezing places in time, about preventing change. However 'saving heritage' is not simply about preventing demolition of every old buildings in the City it is about ensuring those places that are most special to us have a sustainable use that will ensure their long-term survival and appreciation as a 'living heritage'.
It is just as important to embrace change - which drives the social and intellectual evolution of our community - as it is to preserve heritage. Thus heritage management requires allowing for complementary adaptation of our heritage places to balance conservation needs with changing community needs and values.
It is impossible to keep everything, we need ways to identify and assess places to determine which are the most important for us to keep as part of our heritage, and find ways to ensure those places have a sustainable future.
Common questions
As long as heritage buildings are structurally sound, water tight, secure and well maintained, there should be no difficulty with insuring heritage properties.
For minor repairs, the heritage and insurance requirement to reinstate back to a pre-damage state is the same. For properties that are severely damaged, such as gutted by fire, and the insurer is of the view to write them off as destroyed, there will be no heritage requirement to rebuild them as they werebut owners would not be discouraged from so doing.
Premiums should not be any higher than for an unlisted property. It is recommended, however, that property owners confirm this matter with their individual insurer.
Cultural heritage significance is a phrase used to describe the importance of a place or object to our community. It is generally described as a number of component values, including cultural value to First Nation peoples, or for its historical, aesthetic, architectural, archaeological, scientific, social or spiritual values.
Understanding, what it is that makes a place or object significant is crucial to its future management. Effectively those elements or attributes of a place that demonstrate or relate to its significance will be required to be retained and conserved with little change, whilst those elements or attributes that are of no or little significance will have greater flexibility to be changed.
For objects, the significance will effect whether it should remain within, or be added to, a collection and the level of conservation treatment it should receive.
Unfortunately for many of our early heritage overlays, how the overall cultural heritage significance of a place is demonstrated by individual elements and attributes is not clearly described.
Significant elements of a place may include physical construction:
- all or part of a building that had a significant use or relates to a significant period or event
- architectural details that demonstrate a specific style
- outbuildings, structures, landforms, designed gardens, etc
- may include significant indigenous or introduced plantings
- may be spatial - an open or enclosed space where people gathered, a view to the bay or a peak, and the setting may be important aesthetically - as a backdrop or interface to the place, or due to social or functional links to related places in the surrounding area.
Thus it may be desirable to get the advice of a heritage consultant or our heritage advisor as to what is significant before formulating any development plans for a heritage place.
For properties within a heritage area or precinct, the primary objective is to ensure the conservation of those elements that contribute to the area's significance. Generally these will be the visual attributes that give the area a cohesive and distinct streetscape character, for example: the place may be in a commercial street of two-storey parapet fronted shops with awnings or verandahs, or in a residential area of single-storey detached dwellings set back behind fences and gardens.
Not every building in an area will be significant, properties will generally be identified as 'individually significant' (with their own overlay), 'contributory' or 'non-contributory' to the area overlay.
'Contributory' buildings will generally be required to conserve their streetscape appearance to a historical period with only minor changes, any major redevelopment being undertaken in the rear portion of the property.
Whilst the removal of non-contributory buildings is not usually a concern, the redevelopment of those sites and the development of any vacant sites within the area is always a major concern as inappropriate development will have a permanent impact on the character of an area. New development on those sites however, needs to retain the visual character of the heritage area.
Generally, the most critical issue will be the need for the height, massing, roof form, setbacks to front and side boundaries will need to complement - but not necessarily replicate - the nearby 'contributory' buildings. For some character areas, materials and colour schemes, window format, presence of porches or verandahs, and whether the entry addresses the street, may be important.
In most residential character areas the provision of new vehicle access/accommodation is a critical issue. The modern suburban idiom of the street facade of a house being dominated by a wide garage door and vast expanse of paving with little garden, will be inconsistent with the historical character of most areas. Vehicle accommodation will need to discretely managed, and may need to occur to the rear of any house.
Heritage Overlays are created for those heritage places where it is necessary to conserve and manage future use and physical change through mandatory legal requirements. Not all places warrant physical protection - for many the capture and retelling of stories is all that is required.
At other times, heritage conservation may be achieved by alternate provisions, for instance the inclusion of heritage places within a landscape overlay or public reserve.
Each Heritage Overlay is defined within the Greater Geelong Planning Scheme, showing the location and extent of heritage controls over a particular heritage place - which may include a precinct containing a number of properties, a single property, or a part of a property. The extent of an overlay can be seen on the planning scheme maps which are available at all Customer Service Centres or on the Department of Planning website.
The Heritage Overlay provisions are set out at Clause 43.01 within all Victorian Local Planning Schemes. A local Schedule to the Heritage Overlay lists the properties affected by the Heritage Overlay and any additional controls that may apply to that particular site.
Under the Heritage Overlay a planning permit is required from Council to:
- subdivide or consolidate land
- demolish or remove a building (including part of a building)
- construct a building (including part of a building, or a fence)
- alter the exterior of a building
- construct or carry out works
- construct or display a sign
- externally paint an unpainted surface (refer to note below)
- externally paint a building if the painting constitutes an advertisement.
In some instances, external paint controls, internal alteration controls and control over trees may also apply. The Schedule to the Heritage Overlay will identify whether these additional controls apply to your site.
Where a property is an Aboriginal heritage place it will be subject to the additional requirements of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 and Regulations 2018, and the Commonwealth
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984.
Property owners and developers are strongly encouraged to discuss proposals with Council prior to committing to a project.
A heritage place will always encompass an area of land or sea. It may include no trace of past human activity but have importance as the location of an event, as a place of traditional occupation, resource harvesting or spiritual meaning. Or it may have natural values as a geological feature, as an indigenous planting or fauna habitat.
Most heritage places will include physical evidence of some form. Often this is a construction of some type - a building, group of buildings, monument, structure, ruin or other archaeological site; or else some other form of human modification to the landscape - a land area modified by traditional fire management practices, a scarred or blazed tree, a fish trap, amine or quarry, a canal, a garden or avenue tree planting, etc.
A planning permit is not required under the Heritage Overlay to carry out routine maintenance and repairs which do not change the appearance of the heritage place. If the repairs or maintenance involve replacing 'like with like', then a planning permit may not be required.
For example, a rusty iron roof may be replaced with a new iron roof but a planning permit would be required for a roof clad in different in materials (for example: to use tiles instead of iron). Similarly, replacing timber sash windows may be replaced with matching double-glazed timber windows but a planning permit would be required to replace timber sash windows with aluminium sashes.
If in any doubt, clarify your intentions with the local Council before committing to the repairs or maintenance.
The process described relates to places but can also be applied to significant objects.
Heritage assessments are generally carried out by qualified and experienced professionals.
The process aims to identify 'what' is important and 'why' it is important.
Assessment reports usually include a history and description of the place (or object), an assessment of the condition and integrity of the place, and a comparative analysis to substantiate the significance of the place. For heritage character areas, the assessment may focus more on describing the visual character attributes and stylistic features across multiple properties within the area.
Places entered on the Victorian Heritage Register are assessed against a number of statutory criteria, and on occasion these criteria are also used by persons assessing a place for a heritage overlay.
A Statement of Significance is now required for all places and areas on heritage overlays. It constitutes a summary of the place's cultural heritage significance - the most critical consideration in managing the place. Unfortunately some of the older heritage overlays do not have an adequate Statement of Significance; we are seeking to update all over time.
Heritage assessments for places and areas will generally describe management guidelines or heritage schedule requirements to guide future management and permit approvals.
Heritage Victoria (Heritage Listing & Property Valuations In Victoria, March 2001) recently reviewed a number of studies that investigated the effect of heritage listings upon property values and development potential.
The studies ranged from those which indicated a positive impact upon property values following heritage listing to those that indicated a negative impact.
In summary, it found that research studies, both domestic and international, indicate that heritage listing on a macro level is not a significant factor in determining property value either at the time of listing or following.
However, there are individual cases where the effects are more significant, either positive or negative. It is often difficult to estimate the specific effects of heritage listing on the value of a property since heritage controls do not prohibit development, subdivision or demolition but require that approval to be obtained.
Where there is some capacity to develop the particular place and achieve additional development on the land without seriously compromising the heritage significance of the place, the impact on values may not be as great as where the capacity for further development is more limited.
We have completed 'About Corayo: A Thematic History of Greater Geelong' prepared by Dr David Rowe (2021) This provides a very detailed history of the municipality broken down into a dozen major themes, and is available on our website.
To date a number of comprehensive heritage studies that assess individual places have been undertaken within the Geelong region, most of which are now available on our website. These studies include:
- Geelong Region Historic Buildings and Objects Study Volumes 1-3, prepared by Allan Willingham for the Geelong Regional Commission, (1986)
- Geelong City Urban Conservation Study, Volume 1, prepared by Graeme Butler for the City of Geelong, (1993)
- Geelong City Urban Conservation Study, Volumes 2-5, prepared by Graeme Butler for the City of Geelong, (1991)
- Geelong City Urban Conservation Study, Volume 4(a), prepared by Helen Lardner for the City of Greater Geelong, (1995)
- Geelong City, 'C' citations Volume, prepared by Dr David Rowe - Authentic Heritage Services (2002)
- City of Geelong West Urban Conservation Study, Volumes 1-2, prepared by Huddle, Aitken and Honman for the City of Geelong West, (1986)
- City of Newtown Urban Conservation Study, Volumes 1-4, prepared by Context Pty Ltd for the City of Newtown, (1991)
- City of Newtown Urban Conservation Study, Volumes 5(a) and 5(b), prepared by Richard Peterson for the City of Greater Geelong, (1997)
- Bellarine Heritage Study, Volumes 1-3, prepared by Huddle, Howe, Lewis and Francis for the City of Greater Geelong, (1996)
- Greater Geelong Outer Areas Heritage Study Volumes 1-16 prepared by Authentic Heritage Services (2000).
All these studies where prepared by qualified heritage practitioners using the adopted heritage criteria at the time.
The Greater Geelong Outer Areas Heritage Study 2000 has used the principles of the Australia ICOMOS Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance (the Burra Charter) and its Guidelines as the basis to all of the assessments in this study.
In addition the criteria for the Assessment of Cultural Significance of the Register of the National Estate was used to develop a code with the results found on the front page of each citation sheet under the column 'Heritage Study Degrees of Significance'. Further details of this code can be found in Volume 1 Section 4 of the Study Report.
All places that are proposed for planning protection, including places identified in a heritage study, are required to be documented in a manner that clearly substantiates their scientific, aesthetic, architectural or historical interest or other special cultural or natural values.
A citation sheet has been prepared for each place should include a statement of significance that clearly establishes the importance of the place.