Heritage Overlay Precincts in Hobsons Bay

Most people meet their heritage overlay at the worst possible moment — after they've fallen for a house, or after they've drawn a plan.

It doesn't have to work that way. The controls are public, they're specific, and they vary far more between precincts than anyone tells you. This is the index to all of them.

Check your address if you just want to know whether you're in one.

Two things that are true everywhere in Hobsons Bay

Internal alterations are not controlled. Anywhere. Not in one single precinct in the municipality. The overlay governs what can be seen — it has nothing to say about your kitchen, your bathroom, or moving an internal wall. This is the most common and most expensive misunderstanding we encounter.

Solar panels always need a permit. Solar energy system controls apply in every precinct. This is a recent addition to the schedule, it isn't what anyone expects a heritage control to cover, and it catches people out constantly.

Almost everything else — external paint, tree removal, fences and outbuildings — varies by precinct. Council's own Heritage Overlay fact sheet states that external painting requires a permit. In most of these precincts it doesn't. That's the kind of thing worth checking rather than assuming.

The precincts

Guides marked written are complete. The rest are being worked through, largest first.

There is no HO9 — the number was never used.

A few worth knowing about

HO8, Government Survey is the big one: the original 1850s colonial grid in Williamstown, everything between Ferguson Street and the water. It contains seven sub-precincts that have their own separate citations, so two sets of criteria can apply to a single house.

HO27, Private Survey is the other giant, running across both Williamstown and Newport — everything that grew without a plan north of Ferguson Street. It is mapped as a single polygon with 39 holes cut out of it: three whole precincts enclosed inside it but not part of it, plus thirty-six individually listed properties. So your neighbour may be under completely different controls, and what they got approved is not precedent.

HO15 and HO16 are Housing Commission estates. People are often surprised these are protected at all, which is exactly why they are — postwar public housing is under-recognised and disappearing fastest.

HO29, Solomit or Straw Houses, is the strangest and the rarest: experimental postwar houses built with compressed straw panels.

Can I still extend?

Almost always, yes. The overlay is not a preservation order.

The test that matters for most houses is a sight line: an addition should not be visible from a point 1.7 metres above ground on the far side of the street. There is no numeric height limit in these precincts — it depends on your street width, your setback and your roof pitch.

Attic conversions are actively encouraged where the roof pitch is 30 degrees or steeper, and they're consistently the cheapest room you can add in a heritage area, because the volume is already there.

Side additions are the ones that struggle. The rhythm of gaps between houses is often part of what's being protected.

Where to start

Council's heritage advisor is free. Ring them before you draw anything — it's the single most useful hour in the whole process, and we say so even though it costs us work.

Then, if it helps: check your address, read your precinct's guide, and if you want an architect's read on what's actually possible, a Clarity Consultation is a focused session on your specific house. If you haven't bought yet, Confidence to Buy is the same thinking applied before you bid — which in a heritage precinct is far cheaper than finding out afterwards.

We work throughout Williamstown and Newport.

Precinct names and controls transcribed from the Hobsons Bay Planning Scheme, Schedule to Clause 43.01 (amendment C133hbay, gazetted 11 February 2026). Checked 22 August 2026. This is a plain-English summary written by a registered architect. It is not planning advice, and the planning scheme governs.