Community planning services in Glenelg Shire Council : 1998-2005 ...

Did the council comply with key legislative, planning scheme and other requirements? 39
According to the Department of Sustainability and Environment’s practice
guide19 , where councils establish a heritage overlay:
significant heritage precincts and areas should be separately identified
on planning scheme maps and allocated a map reference prefix. This
should be cross-referenced to a schedule attached to the overlay. The
purpose of identifying these areas is to preserve the personality of a
streetscape or suburb
individual properties or assets such as buildings, trees, lakes and
swamps can also be identified on planning scheme maps and included
in the schedule. These assets are separately identified where the council
considers their use and development needs to be more tightly controlled
than the broader identified precincts or areas.
If a heritage overlay applies, a planning permit is required to demolish,
alter or add to an existing building and for any new building or structure.
The heritage overlay requires the council to consider, before it grants the
permit, whether the proposed action will lessen the significance of the
heritage place.
Findings of our review
Heritage overlays included in the council’s planning scheme outlined the
purpose of the overlay, identified circumstances where a permit was
required, and identified circumstances where notice and appeal
requirements were exempt.
Heritage properties were identified on planning scheme maps and in the
schedules to the heritage overlays. Designated heritage areas or precincts
were also identified on planning scheme maps, but generally not listed in
the schedules to the overlays.
In these circumstances, there is some ambiguity as to whether the
requirements of the overlay relate to all properties, within the heritage
areas designated in the planning scheme maps, or only to those heritage
places included in the schedule.
However, in September 2001, VCAT considered this issue in relation to
discrepancies in another planning scheme and ruled “if the property is
shown … on the planning scheme map as HO [heritage overlay] with or
without a number, the heritage overlay provisions ... apply” 20 .
19 Department of Infrastructure 1999, Victoria Plan Provisions Practice Note – Applying the Heritage
Overlay, Department of Infrastructure, Melbourne.
20 Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Librey Pty Ltd v. North & West Melbourne Association Inc.
(2001) VCAT 1833, para. 42.