Hanmer Street Heritage Precinct (HO12)

The heritage citation calls Hanmer Street an integral part of the Government Survey precinct. It is a well-established residential street with houses from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Two are among the earliest: No. 6, a near-original two-storey house of coursed basalt built before 1858, and No. 46, built around 1852–58. Both sit on the building line, which the citation reads as evidence of their early date.

The street also has a railway story: the citation notes its associations with the Melbourne–Williamstown railway, including the station and the former Terminus Hotel.

What applies here

External paint controls apply, so repainting the outside of a building can need a planning permit. Tree controls apply to street trees only (the citation notes mainly elms between Cole and Thompson Streets). Other rules can still cover a tree in your own garden, so check with council before removing one. Neither control applies in the surrounding Government Survey precinct (HO8). Solar energy systems are controlled, as in every Hobsons Bay precinct; internal alterations are not.

Why this precinct is protected

The Statement of Significance defines the precinct this way:

The Hanmer Street Heritage Precinct, which comprises all land in HO12 and generally includes properties with a frontage or side boundary to Hanmer Street, Williamstown.

It finds the precinct of local historic and aesthetic significance to the City of Hobsons Bay. Historically, it helps explain Williamstown's nineteenth-century development, and its railway links are of interest.

Aesthetically, the citation says Hanmer Street has elements typical of the Government Survey and some of its own. The typical ones are basalt houses and timber duplexes with no dividing wall; groups of mostly Victorian and Edwardian houses with similar design, siting and scale; and early roadway with mature exotic street trees. The citation notes that some listed houses, although altered, still contribute because they keep their form and siting. ("Contributory" means a building that adds to the precinct's significance.)

Its own elements are the contrast between the single-storey houses and the larger commercial and civic buildings, including the early two-storey, stuccoed and parapeted commercial buildings on corner or mid-block sites built to the building line, and the adjacent station precinct.

The former Terminus Hotel, by the noted hotel architects Sydney, Smith & Ogg, is a near-original parapeted brick and stucco hotel with a corner oriel topped by a shallow cupola, which the citation calls distinctive of the firm's Edwardian hotels. The station complex includes the flush-boarded timber station building and the timber and cast iron Ann Street footbridge.

The station is part of the street

What reads as a residential street is protected partly for its link to the railway, and the citation is specific about what weakens it. Between Thompson and Kanowna Streets the street lacks the enclosure of the Cole to Thompson block: there is no continuous housing on the southern side, there are multi-storey Ministry of Housing flats, and housing built over a former reserve cuts off the view of the station, particularly from the former Terminus Hotel.

Between Cole and Thompson Streets, mature elms line both sides and hold the block together, softening several postwar brick houses and occasional high fences that shut out the street. So two things matter beyond your own house: views of the station, particularly from the former Terminus Hotel, and the elm-lined enclosure of the Cole to Thompson block. A design that blocks the first or breaks the second works against what the citation describes.

The streets in HO12

The schedule describes the precinct as: Hanmer Street, Williamstown.

The citation's location line names Hanmer Street (part), Kanowna Street (part) and Thompson Street (part). Because the precinct takes in properties with a side boundary to Hanmer Street, a corner property with a cross-street address can be inside it, and not all of Hanmer Street is necessarily included. The schedule row for HO8 also lists the street, spelt "Hamner Street", so a search may return both. Check your address rather than going by the street name.

The citation lists contributory properties by number, odd and even sides separately. A property off the list but inside the boundary is still in the overlay, and the 2006 guidelines cover it too.

• Hanmer Street (odd): 67, 77, 81-93, 97 and 119-129 and the land adjacent Williamstown Railway Station
• Hanmer Street (even): 6-14, 18, 20, 22, 26, 38, 40, 42, 46, 64-68, 84, 86 and 90 (inclusive)

The rules that decide your application

Government Survey Heritage Precinct Heritage Design Guidelines 2020 applies here. It is an incorporated document, listed in the schedule to Clause 72.04, so it forms part of the planning scheme and council's planners assess applications against it.

It is also named for the surrounding Government Survey precinct (HO8) and the neighbouring street precincts, so it wasn't written for Hanmer Street alone. This guide doesn't summarise it; get a copy from council before you start drawing.

Council's 2006 Guidelines for Alterations and Additions to Dwellings in Heritage Areas in Hobsons Bay and Guidelines for Infill Development in Heritage Areas in Hobsons Bay apply too. They ask you to leave the street front and roofline alone, keep additions to the rear with minimal visibility, keep side additions well back, and make new work distinguishable from old.

Can I add a second storey?

The 2006 alterations guidelines set no specific height. The test is visibility: draw your house and the street in section, then a line from eye level, 1.7 metres above the ground on the opposite side of the street, over your roof. An addition below that line will have minimal visibility. Corner sites have more sight lines.

Most roofs of 30 degrees pitch or more should be checked for room for an attic, with attic windows to the side or rear. Failing that, a second storey should sit well back from the façade, behind the ridgeline of the main roof, set in from the side walls, and no higher than adjacent buildings in the street.

Here an addition that makes a house read as two storeys from the street would also eat into the contrast between low houses and larger buildings that the citation singles out.

Fences, garages and the details

• External paint is controlled. The 2006 guidelines ask for colours that suit the period and style of the house and the street, say previously unpainted surfaces should not be painted, and apply the same advice to fences.
• Few front fences are original; most are low, many in reproduction timber pickets. The citation names high fences that shut out the street as disparate elements, and the guidelines say no new fence should exceed 1300 mm. The former Presbyterian manse site keeps its original cast-iron palisade fence, which the citation calls unusual for Williamstown.
• Concrete kerbs and crossovers already exist in places, but the guidelines discourage new crossovers and say existing ones aren't a reason to approve more. Garages are not favoured in the front setback; at the side, set them at least two metres behind the façade.
• Never sandblast paint off brick or stone; use a non-abrasive method.

What gets approved here

This section will carry the local permit record — application volumes, approval rates, what refused applications were attempting, and any VCAT decisions. That analysis is in progress and will be published with its method and limits stated.

What to do next

Ask council for pre-application advice. A free call with a planner, before anything is drawn — the most useful hour in the process.

Then check your address to confirm which precinct you are actually in. A Clarity Consultation is a focused session on your specific house; Confidence to Buy applies the same thinking before you bid.

Browse every Hobsons Bay heritage precinct.

Sources: control table and precinct extent transcribed from the Hobsons Bay Planning Scheme, Schedule to Clause 43.01 (C133hbay, gazetted 11/02/2026), read 27 October 2026. Significance from the Hobsons Bay Heritage Study 2006 citation for the Hanmer Street Heritage Precinct (Victorian Heritage Database place 22440). Design tests from Hobsons Bay City Council's Guidelines for Alterations and Additions to Dwellings in Heritage Areas (2006) and Guidelines for Infill Development in Heritage Areas (2006). This is a plain-English summary written by a registered architect. It is not planning advice and the planning scheme governs.