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Introduction
The City of Melbourne has a rich and important heritage locally, nationally and internationally. It has been at the forefront of heritage planning in Australia since the 1980s.
Council’s role is to identify and protect Melbourne’s heritage for current and future generations. We do this through a proactive program of heritage reviews and assessments, amendments to the planning scheme and the implementation of Council’s Heritage Strategy.
More than 7000 properties are protected under the Heritage Overlay in the Melbourne Planning Scheme. The municipality has benefited from this commitment to heritage and is renowned as one of the world’s great Victorian-era cities.
This guide is primarily for people who own a place protected by the Heritage Overlay in the City of Melbourne Planning Scheme. It focuses on Victoria’s current system of heritage protection as it applies to places created after European settlement.
This guide does not include advice about the protection and management of Aboriginal cultural heritage which has its own framework of statutory protection in Victoria: The Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 and the Aboriginal Heritage Regulations 2018. Find out more at Victorian LegislationOpens in new tab.
The City of Melbourne acknowledges that the Aboriginal people were the first people of this land and have strived to retain their culture and identity through the period of non-Aboriginal settlement for more than two centuries. We recognise the value of the diversity and strength of cultures to the heritage of all Australians and are committed to the conservation and celebration of Aboriginal heritage places.
The Heritage Owner's Guide must be read in conjunction with the Melbourne Planning Scheme and to the extent of any inconsistency, the Melbourne Planning Scheme prevails. The Heritage Owner's Guide is a resource to assist relevant land owners and provide information generally and does not constitute legal advice. The Heritage Owner's Guide and in particular the diagrams and photographs contained within it are for illustrative purposes only noting that assessing and responding to heritage controls will depend on the individual site context and all the circumstances.
Where the author of the image is not specified, these images are taken by or owned by the City of Melbourne. All illustrations have been prepared by the City of Melbourne.
