City of Fremantle
Coastal Charm
Fremantle has evolved over a long period with successive generations responding to the place they inherited, adapting their surroundings to changing circumstances and supporting the constant regeneration needed for Fremantle to remain a thriving port city. These changes have affected not only the physical landscape of Fremantle but also its social and economic life.
The resulting diversity of Fremantle’s well-loved ‘port city’ character is of great cultural, social, economic and environmental importance. The City of Fremantle wants to retain and revitalise these attributes and is focused on conserving its heritage places so they are used, enjoyed and benefited from, with the intention that they become vital elements of its urban centre and the life of its community.
The aim, therefore, is not just to conserve these buildings but also to integrate them into urban regeneration schemes aspiring to a quality of design and execution that will reinforce and revitalise the character of Fremantle to create a successful urban centre that is positively different from other places in the metropolitan area.
Getting this balance right will secure the continued use and conservation of Fremantle’s heritage buildings, ensuring they are cherished well into the future.
Find out everything you need to know below.
Heritage is important in understanding the story of an area – its history, identity and diversity, and how it has shaped us and our world today.
Heritage is diverse and consists of places such as buildings, monuments, gardens, cemeteries, cultural landscapes and archaeological sites.
As a community, we share the responsibility to identify and protect what is important and pass on these places to future generations, so they will understand what came before them.
The City’s Local Planning Scheme No. 4 requires us to compile a list of individual properties that are of cultural heritage significance to Fremantle and worthy of conservation.
There are currently approximately 2500 places within the City on the Heritage List. The list only contains the property address; however, further information on each place can be found in the inHerit database, which is managed by the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, or the Fremantle History Centre.
Inclusion on the Heritage List means that planning approval is required for many types of works, including some that are exempt for non-listed places.
View the City’s current Heritage List
The Local Heritage Survey (formerly the Municipal Heritage Inventory) is a database of heritage places in the City of Fremantle, which have been assessed for their aesthetic, historic, social or scientific value. It contains an invaluable collection of heritage information for more than 5000 places across the local government area; a record of each place can be found in:
The purposes of a Local Heritage Survey are to:
The Local Heritage Survey does not, by itself, have any legal implications for the protection and development.
Listing is the way our heritage places are identified and managed through the planning process. This helps look after the environmental, economic and social benefits of our heritage buildings for current and future generations. Listing assists with conservation of a place, but it is not intended to stop all change.
If your property is heritage listed or is within a heritage area, it does not mean that development is prohibited. It is a common misconception that if a place is included on the Heritage List or in a heritage area then that place cannot be altered in any way. This is not the case. The City of Fremantle recognises that the best way to protect heritage places is to have them occupied and in use. This means that development of heritage places to accommodate contemporary requirements and uses is encouraged, provided that it is done in a sensitive manner and noting that there are limitations.
The majority of development proposals affecting a heritage-protected place are considered against the City’s Local Planning Policy 1.6 | Heritage Administration and Procedures and Local Planning Policy 3.6 | Heritage-Protected Places, Built Form and Land Use.
Some works are exempt from requiring planning approval and are outlined in Local Planning Policy 1.7 | Exemptions.
You can check on your Heritage Area and the list of contributory properties recorded within it here and via the place record form here.
To ensure that your request is considered for the next annual update of the Heritage List and Local Heritage Survey, please fill out and submit this form.
