Maintaining Heritage Properties

Heritage owners have an important responsibility to maintain their properties, to ensure these properties continue to contribute to the City of Parramatta’s streets and neighbourhoods. By doing this, the ongoing value of these properties will also be enhanced.

This webpage provides information on heritage property maintenance.

Sustainable Heritage Buildings Guide

In August 2024, the NSW Government released the first edition of the guideline Sustainable heritage buildings guide Improving the environmental performance of heritage buildings in NSW to support owners in transitioning buildings to be more energy efficient, especially for sites with heritage significance.

This guide presents various methodologies and interventions which can be explored to improve building sustainability while protecting heritage significance and benefiting from the existing embodied energy invested in their structures.

View the Document

The guide can be viewed on the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water website at the following link:

Sustainable heritage buildings guide (PDF) 

Solar Panels

The Heritage Minor Works (HMW) application is highly recommended when minor work is expected to affect heritage items. The State Environmental Planning Policy (Transport and Infrastructure) 2021 does exempt solar panel installations, provided they are properly placed. Additionally, we have general controls outlined in the Development Control Plan (DCP) Appendix Part 12 A3.5 SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEM GUIDELINES(PDF, 3MB) 

The State Government Heritage has released a new set of guidelines that provide clarity on solar system installations for heritage sites.

Solar panel systems: heritage practice note | Environment and Heritage

Building upkeep

Regular maintenance and upkeep of heritage buildings is essential for their conservation and protection. Buildings need to be kept structurally sound and weather proofed.

Often major jobs can be prevented if simple maintenance is carried out on a regular basis.

Council has a strong interest in ensuring adequate maintenance of heritage properties.

Notices can be served requiring work to be undertaken to neglected and derelict properties, including heritage properties.

Proposals to demolish heritage buildings or remove them from the heritage lists even when they are in a neglected condition, will be strongly resisted by Council.

Maintenance advice

Environment & Heritage NSW has a series of downloadable guides which provide practical advice on a range of maintenance problems from rising damp to roof plumbing.

View Heritage NSW's website

Colour schemes

Council does not prescribe external colours that you must use, however a colour scheme sympathetic to the era of your house can make a significant contribution to the appearance of a building and its overall presentation.

A good exterior colour scheme should not only incorporate colours appropriate to the architectural style but also have a logical theme over the different elements, such as all windows sashes in the one colour, and be practical for local conditions.

There are a number of books and references available that can help you identify your house style/period and find the right colours for your house.

The following publications are a good starting point and available in Council’s libraries (in some cases within Local Studies section which can be viewed but are not for loan):

• Colour Schemes for Old Australian Houses and More Colour Schemes for Old Australian Houses by Ian Evans, Clive Lucas and Ian Stapleton.
• Historic Colour Schemes Volumes 1 and 2 by Ian Stapleton.
• How to restore the old Aussie house by Ian Stapleton
• Australian house styles by Maisy Stapleton
• Identifying Australian Houses 1981 by Ian Stapleton, Maisy Stapleton, Craig Burton, Historic Houses Trust of NSW

Church Street Main Street Study

For Church Street, Parramatta refer to the Church Street Main Street Study by Peter Freeman Pty Ltd and Streetwise Design – 1997.

Other areas

For general painting and conservation work on masonry consider these NSW Environment & Heritage resources:

• Paint finishes
• Plaster finishes
• Removing paint from old buildings
• Mortars – materials, mixes and methods

For general painting and conservation work on timber use these NSW Environment & Heritage resources:

• Timber repairs
• Wood preservation
• Repair tongue and groove floorboards
• Patching old floorboards 

Tradespeople

Where possible we recommend you use tradespeople who have experience in repairs and maintenance of heritage properties.

Before engaging a service provider, you should:

• check their suitability for your project requirements
• check their qualifications, memberships and accreditation
• ask about relevant experience and to see examples of previous work
• request references from previous clients.

Photographic Archival Records 

In 2025 Heritage NSW released new Guidelines for preparing archival recordings of heritage items when required.