Hannan’s Farm Heritage Precinct (HO13)

Hannan’s Farm was laid out in the nineteenth century as a speculative subdivision: a regular grid either side of Hannan Street, with parallel rear laneways. The streets were not fully developed until the Interwar period.

The citation credits the railway. The expansion of the nearby railway workshops and related industry revived Williamstown in the early twentieth century, after the port declined at the end of the nineteenth, and that is when most of these houses went up. The Victorian-era houses mark where the streets began.

What applies here

External paint controls and tree controls are both off in HO13, and internal alterations aren’t controlled. Solar energy systems are controlled, as they are in every Hobsons Bay heritage precinct.

Why this precinct is protected

The citation finds HO13 of local historic and aesthetic significance to the City of Hobsons Bay. It defines the precinct this way:

The Hannan's Farm Heritage Precinct, which comprises all land in HO13 and generally includes properties with a frontage to Castle Street, Collins Street, Hannan Street, Knight Street and Swanston Street, Williamstown.

The aesthetic paragraph is the one to design against:

Aesthetically, Hannan's Farm is significant as an early twentieth century residential precinct, which comprises predominantly Edwardian and Interwar era houses with common or similar characteristics of design, siting and scale that create a cohesive and homogeneous streetscape. Many are externally intact and others, although altered, still retain their distinctive form and siting and hence contribute to the precinct.

So the test is the streetscape as a whole. And an altered house can still be contributory (a building that adds to the precinct’s significance) if it keeps its form and siting.

Postwar houses break up the precinct in places, but the citation rates Hannan Street and Collins Street as having high integrity. Hannan Street is mostly single-storey Victorian and Edwardian villas, many double-fronted, with consistent setbacks, siting and scale. The citation singles out No. 121 for its elaborate verandah, and No. 47, a rare asymmetrical villa in polychromatic brick. Castle Street is less intact but has an unusual Interwar bungalow at No. 25, and there is a related group of small Victorian workers cottages at 5-9 Swanston Street.

The street is older than the houses

Victorian, Edwardian and Interwar houses stand side by side here. They share characteristics of design, siting and scale, but not one period style. So your design cues come from your own house first.

The 2006 municipal guidelines describe each era differently: Victorian houses with simple façades and hipped or gabled roofs, often of 30 degrees; Edwardian and Federation houses asymmetrical, with hips and projecting gables; bungalows dominated by large gables and deep porches. The guidelines call understanding your house’s style and your street’s character “the first step” to a sympathetic addition.

The streets in HO13

The schedule describes the precinct as: Castle Street, Collins Street, Esplanade (part), Gellibrand Street (part), Hannan Street, Knight Street, Osborne Street, (part), Swanson Street and Winifred Street in Williamstown.

Esplanade, Gellibrand Street and Osborne Street are only partly included, and all three are also partly in the Williamstown Beach precinct (HO34). The citation lists no contributory addresses in Osborne or Winifred streets, and spells Swanson Street as Swanston Street. Check your address rather than going by the street name.

The contributory properties, as the citation lists them (“odd” and “even” mean only those numbers in each range). A property that isn’t listed is still in the overlay if it is inside the mapped boundary.

• Castle Street: odd 7, 17, 23 and 25; even 10 and 20
• Collins Street: even 4-12 and 18-26
• Esplanade: 108
• Gellibrand Street: even 34-38
• Hannan Street: odd 3, 7-21, 25-29, 33, 35, 39-85, 87-95, 101, 105, 107, 111-115, 121 and 123; even 2-10, 16, 20, 26, 34, 44, 52, 54, 60-64, 76, 78, 82, 84, 88-92, 100, 102, 106, 110, 112, 118
• Knight Street: even 4-10
• Swanston Street: 7 and 9

The rules that decide your application

Hannan’s Farm (Ramsgate Estate) and Williamstown Beach Heritage Precincts 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. The schedule names the same document for the Williamstown Beach (HO34), Victoria Street (HO33) and Railway Crescent (HO28) precincts.

The municipal Guidelines for Alterations and Additions to Dwellings in Heritage Areas in Hobsons Bay (2006) and Guidelines for Infill Development in Heritage Areas in Hobsons Bay (2006) apply as well, to contributory and non-contributory houses alike. Avoid changing the front of the house or a significant roofline visible from the street, unless you are restoring an earlier appearance. A rear addition that can’t be seen from the street is preferred, and side additions are strongly discouraged. Match the existing roof pitch and cladding with smaller massing, and make new work distinguishable from old by simplifying details rather than copying them. A new house should keep the street’s setbacks, reflect its neighbours’ height and proportions, and appear single storey from the front.

Can I add a second storey?

The 2006 guidelines set no specific height. The concern is minimal visibility from the street, tested with a sight line from eye level (1.7 metres above ground) on the opposite side of the street, drawn over your existing roof. Below that line and behind the roof is the envelope for an addition. A second storey should also sit well back from the façade, behind the main ridgeline, in from the side walls, and no higher than adjacent buildings.

Check the roof for an attic first. The guidelines suggest checking roofs of 30 degrees or more, and call Federation houses, with their complex roofs, particularly suitable. Bungalows whose main gable ridge runs parallel to the street are harder to extend without detracting from the street elevation.

The 2006 guidelines accept that some additions will be seen from the street; what they ask is that an addition stays recessive and doesn't dominate. In a precinct the citation values for a cohesive streetscape, that is the test a visible second storey has to meet.

Fences, garages and the details

• Hannan Street’s rear laneways keep their bluestone, though the street kerbs are now concrete. The guidelines prefer garages at the rear, reached from a lane, without losing the lane’s heritage qualities.
• Garages in the front setback are not favoured. At the side, set them at least 2 metres behind the façade, as a separate structure. Double garages are not favoured, and new crossovers are discouraged.
• Keep an original front fence if you have one. No new fence should exceed 1300 mm.
• Paint isn’t controlled here, but the guidelines ask for colours suited to the house’s period and style, and for previously unpainted surfaces to stay unpainted.
• Don’t sandblast paint off masonry. Where painted brick may be bichrome or polychrome underneath, the guidelines encourage paint removal, but only after a test patch to the satisfaction of council’s Heritage Advisor.

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, description and contributory properties from the Hobsons Bay Heritage Study 2006 citation for the Hannan’s Farm Heritage Precinct (Victorian Heritage Database place 22441). Design guidance from Hobsons Bay City Council’s Guidelines for Alterations and Additions to Dwellings in Heritage Areas in Hobsons Bay (2006) and Guidelines for Infill Development in Heritage Areas in Hobsons Bay (2006). This is a plain-English summary written by a registered architect. It is not planning advice and the planning scheme governs.