What should I consider prior to renovating a period property?
…Renovating a heritage house can present opportunities and unique challenges.
But don’t worry, there is plenty of help at hand. One of the first things would-be heritage property renovators should do is check with their council as to whether their house is among the more than 150,000 properties in the state covered by a heritage overlay (a select few are also among the 2250 buildings on the State Heritage Register, in which case a permit will be required from Heritage Victoria before work starts). ”The council is a very useful starting point because they will have, in the schedule to the heritage overlay, whether or not there are paint colour controls, whether there are controls about trees … [and] other things you might want to consider when you are doing up your property.
Most of Victoria’s councils offer a free heritage advisory service to help home owners with their decisions and to help them navigate their way through the approvals’ process.
Other resources to help with period-home renovations include Heritage Victoria’s publication “What House Is That?”, which provides information on different styles of heritage houses, as well as the organisation’s broad range of downloadable technical publications covering everything from maintaining slate roofs to preserving timber.
