Heritage Gaps Review Program
Project overview
The Heritage Gaps Review Program is an ambitious and proactive work program to identify and protect places of heritage significance missing from the Ballarat Planning Scheme and to enhance the protection and management of existing heritage places and precincts.
Heritage provides an intrinsic link to our past, but it is also an important part of how we view ourselves, our identity and it provides evidence of how our communities have evolved and developed over time.
Heritage is a key part of the identity of the City of Ballarat. There are pressures on the City’s important and cherished heritage places and areas due to increasing development and competing strategic objectives. The City of Ballarat are working to manage these pressures through the Heritage Gaps Review Program to ensure we protect the places that make our municipality special while making sure that development is sensitive to identified heritage values.
The Ballarat Heritage Gaps Review Program is an important opportunity to protect places of local heritage significance in the face of unprecedented growth, to strengthen the unique character of our whole municipality and celebrate the history of all the City of Ballarat with the Ballarat community.
Why is a Heritage Gaps Review Program taking place?
We need to undertake this program to deliver on the City of Ballarat Council Plan 2021-2025, which describes Ballarat as ‘Victoria’s heritage city: leading the way as a sustainable, innovative and inclusive community’.
The Heritage Gaps Review Program recognises that there are many places which have heritage significance across the municipality with no heritage protection. The study will identify, document and assess these places to consider whether they should be added to the Heritage Overlay of the Ballarat Planning Scheme.
The Heritage Gaps Review Program is being done to ensure existing heritage places and precincts have adequate documentation to clearly demonstrate what, how and why they are significant.
The Heritage Gaps Review Program will review the existing statutory tools used to make decisions about Ballarat’s heritage places and precincts. This will provide a more robust framework to ensure good decisions which celebrate and respect our heritage while allowing Ballarat to grow.
The Heritage Gaps Review Program will provide Council and property owners or occupiers with clear guidance for decision making in relation to the conservation and future management and development of heritage places.
What areas of Ballarat does the Heritage Gaps Review Program cover?
The Heritage Gaps Review program will capture the entire City of Ballarat municipality. It will include rural areas, townships and urban areas.
How long will it take?
The Heritage Gaps Review Program is a substantial undertaking which will involve numerous consultancy firms, community engagement programs and a significant input from City of Ballarat Officers. It will take several years to complete the full set of proposed projects within the Program, but we hope to complete it fully by 2030.
Would you like to get involved?
- Contact the Heritage Team at City of Ballarat via Customer Service on 5320 5500
- Send an email to heritageteam@ballarat.vic.gov.au
- Visit MySay and keep an eye out for any open consultations
