Pasco Street Heritage Precinct (HO24)

Pasco Street includes some of the earliest houses and commercial buildings in Williamstown. The heritage citation links some of its early houses, from the late 1850s on, to owners and occupiers tied to Williamstown's early role as Melbourne's port, and its school and church buildings to the founding of the Williamstown community.

The citation calls it an integral part of the Government Survey, and like its neighbours it is mostly Victorian hipped-roof weatherboard houses. What it adds is a run of larger landmarks and a road that keeps its nineteenth-century layout.

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, which covers the elm avenue. 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 Pasco Street Heritage Precinct, which comprises all land in HO24 and generally includes properties with a frontage or side boundary to Pasco Street, Williamstown.

It finds the precinct of local historic and aesthetic significance to the City of Hobsons Bay. Aesthetically, Pasco Street shares the Government Survey's typical elements: early or rare building types such as the basalt houses; groups of mostly Victorian and Edwardian houses with similar design, siting and scale; and early roadway with exotic street trees. The citation notes that some listed houses, although altered, still contribute because they keep their distinctive form and siting. ("Contributory" means a building that adds to the precinct's significance.)

Its own elements are a number of substantial nineteenth-century houses and public buildings designed by noted Melbourne architects, such as Tudor House, and the group of Queen Anne villas near Melbourne Road.

Walking the street, the citation points out:

• the Holy Trinity complex at the Nelson Place corner, with its bluestone Gothic Revival church and vicarage facing Nelson Place and a Carpenter Gothic timber Sunday School hall facing Pasco Street
• the castellated two-storey Tudor House (1884) and the former Wesleyan Church (1854–66), strong corner elements at Electra Street (see the Electra Street precinct, HO4)
• three Queen Anne villas near Melbourne Road, opposite the early basalt house 'Ashton Villa', and across Melbourne Road 'St Ayles', an asymmetrical Italianate villa with its original front fence
• the former Crown Hotel and former Manchester Unity Oddfellows Hall near Cecil Street, and Williamstown High School's two-storey Moderne classroom block at Verdon Street.

The road is on the list

The citation's contributory list includes the early street layout as an element in its own right, alongside the houses. It describes a central sealed road with unmade gravel verges, bluestone guttering kept everywhere except the block east of Cecil Street, and elms planted in avenue formation along its length, the best and most mature between Electra Street and Melbourne Road.

A new driveway crossover cuts through the gravel verge and the bluestone guttering. Council's 2006 guidelines discourage new crossovers and front-yard parking, and prefer access from a rear lane or side street where possible; for new buildings, the infill guidelines say no new crossovers should be created.

The citation rates the street's integrity moderate to low, because postwar development disrupts it, and calls the late-1960s Housing Commission high-rise flats opposite Holy Trinity, on the site of Bryant's Bonded Stores, visually intrusive. Cohesive groups of nineteenth and early twentieth century houses remain, and they carry the precinct.

The streets in HO24

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

The citation's location line names Aitken Street (part) and Pasco Street (part), and says the precinct generally covers properties with a frontage to Pasco Street between Railway Place and Nelson Place. Pasco Street is also named in the schedule row for HO8. Check your address rather than going by the street name.

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

• Pasco Street (odd): 15-19, 21, 25-31, 47, 57-61, 69 and 83-93
• Pasco Street (even): 4-16, 22-32, 50-56, 62-64 and 70-76
• Early street layout

The citation adds that 27 and 29 Pasco Street are not the original dwellings: they have been reconstructed in accordance with the ICOMOS Burra Charter. Some places here may also have their own individual citations.

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 Pasco 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, and there are several notable ones on Pasco Street, 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; the guidelines single out Federation houses with complex roofs as particularly suitable. 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.

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, such as unpainted basalt, should not be painted, and apply the same advice to fences.
• Few front fences are original; most are low, many in reproduction timber pickets. New fences should not exceed 1300 mm, and high solid fences are not acceptable.
• Garages and carports are not favoured in the front setback. At the side, set them at least two metres behind the façade; double garages are not favoured.
• 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 Pasco Street Heritage Precinct (Victorian Heritage Database place 22454). 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.