A Heritage Focus – Hoddle Grid, Victorian Heritage Register

Melbourne’s Hoddle Grid Review comes into Operation

On 9 September 2022, following one of the most significant heritage reviews in Australia, Amendment C387melb was gazetted.  It provides protection for heritage places inside the Hoddle Grid based on the recommendations of the Hoddle Grid Heritage Review 2020.

Amendment C387 (C387) affects 137 individual places and 5 precincts within the Hoddle Grid area, and introduces a set of controls that protect places such as Hardware Lane, Flinders Lane, the Waiters Club restaurant, the Hill of Content bookshop and the Victoria Club building.

While many places of heritage significanct were already protected by local controls, the new controls introducted by C387 represent the strengthening of heritage values within the Hoddle Grid by:

• amending the local policy at Clause 22.04 to permanently refer to Hoddle Grid Heritage Review July 2020;
• extending the category (grading) of 2-6 and 8-14 Rankins Lane within the Guildford and Hardware Laneways Precinct and 341-345 Elizabeth Street within the Elizabeth Street West Precinct from contributory to significant on a permanent basis;
• amending the Schedule to Clause 43.01:
  • to revise the boundary of four (4) existing individual Heritage Overlays on a permanent basis;
  • to provide separate Statements of Significance to all place and precincts on a permanent basis.

Where the Heritage Overlay exists, amenity and other non-heritage concerns may only be relevant if other zone or overlay controls apply to or are triggered by the application. In an application or review affected by a Heritage Overlay alone, such matters may only be raised within if carefully framed to fit strictly within the confines of the heritage merits of the application[1]. Notwithstanding, opportunity may exist on the basis of heritage grounds alone to incorporate consideration of design elements including, for example, height, bulk, wall treatments and cladding colour.

Nominations to the Victorian Heritage Register

The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) contains places, objects and archaeological sites of State heritage significance.  The Heritage Council, that considers review of contested nomination decisions made by Heritage Victoria’s Executive Director, has threshold Guidelines – The Victorian Heritage Register Criteria and Threshold Guidelines (Heritage Council of Victoria, 2012).

A nomination application takes a particular form and requires attention to eight criteria and Heritage Victoria has guidelines that set out the ambit of each Criteria with comparable examples, as follows: –

1. Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history;[2]
2. Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history;[3]
3. Potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Victoria’s cultural history;[4]
4. Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects;[5]
5. Importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics;[6]
6. Importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period;[7]
7. Strong or special association with a particular present-day community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons;[8]
8. Special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Victoria’s history.[9]

While the elements of cultural heritage significance are set out in the Burra Charter[10], several policy documents are also taken into account including:

• Victoria’s Framework of Historical Themes (Heritage Council of Victoria, 2009);
• Guidelines for Nominators to the Victorian Heritage Registry (Heritage Council of Victoria, 2009); and
• Policy: Objects Integral to a Registered Place (Heritage Council of Victoria, 1 October 2020).

KELLEHERS AUSTRALIA
Cameron Algie, LLB (Hons).
30 September 2022

Copyright © Kellehers Australia 2022.

Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation

This fact sheet is intended only to provide a summary and general overview on matters of interest. It does not constitute legal advice. You should always seek legal and other professional advice which takes account of your individual circumstances.

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[1] Lee v Boroondara City Council [2001] VCAT 966, Burn v Stonnington City Council [2001] VCAT 1463, Duster v Boroondara City Council [2010] VCAT 1140, Voges v Port Phillip City Council [2013] VCAT 1641.

[2] The Victorian Heritage Register Criteria and Threshold Guidelines (Heritage Council of Victoria, 2012), 6,

[3] Ibid, 8.

[4] Ibid, 10.

[5] Ibid, 12.

[6] Ibid, 14.

[7] Ibid, 16.

[8] Ibid, 18.

[9] Ibid, 20.

[10] The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance (Australia ICOMOS, 2013).