Shaping Heritage Futures: The Strategic Framework Behind the 2026 City of Melbourne Heritage Strategy

The recent adoption of the City of Melbourne Heritage Strategy 2026: Stories of people and place by the Future Melbourne Committee on 17 February 2026 marks a definitive shift in municipal heritage planning in Victoria.

Melbourne's previous 2013 strategy primarily focused on the built environment and ensuring places were protected through the application of the Heritage Overlay.

The new 2026 framework explicitly seeks to reflect contemporary community values and respond to emerging urban challenges, including housing capacity, economic growth, and climate change.

Recognising Indigenous Heritage and cultural landscapes at the Birrarung/Yarra River for the City of Melbourne Heritage Strategy.

A People-Centred Shift in Local Heritage Policy

Heritage Workshop is proud to have contributed across this transformative two-year project. Rather than viewing historical assets purely through the lens of planning controls, we helped establish the conceptual architecture that embeds a genuinely people-centred approach, a framework initially tested through the foundational Heritage, People and Place Discussion Paper 2024.

This methodology acknowledges that a place's significance derives heavily from the communities that use, value, and adapt it, providing a pragmatic baseline for balancing conservation with 21st-century commercial, residential and social needs.

We approach people-centred conservation as a robust community, statutory and design lens, applying evidence-based methodologies to ensure heritage places deliver long-term value. This philosophy is foundational to our practice; our Founding Director, Dr James Lesh, has published extensively on people-centred heritage with leading global experts.

Capturing diverse stories of Melbourne for the Heritage Strategy at Chinatown.

Establishing the Five Strategic Priorities

Our "Next-Generation Conservation" philosophy aligns with the strategy's five adopted priority areas: Stewardship, Distinctive places, Aboriginal heritage, Powerful experiences of our multicultural city, and Sustainability and environment.

By establishing this framework early in the project's lifecycle, we ensured the strategy provided actionable pathways for integrating heritage imperatives with progressive urban outcomes. For example, the strategy explicitly aims to ensure that heritage does not act as a barrier to mitigating climate change, supporting practical measures like adaptive reuse and retrofitting.

Importantly, the strategy operates as a non-statutory document. It does not propose new planning controls or immediate changes to the planning system, but rather will guide the Council's approach to heritage management and inform the future work programme for the next ten years. It is a grounded response designed to equip the municipality with a robust evidence base for navigating the Victoria Planning Provisions in the future.

Crucially, the strategy places community and stories at its heart in order to support change and development.

Leading Sector and Community Engagement

Translating complex statutory ambitions into public understanding requires transparent and authoritative sector engagement. The final strategy was heavily shaped by extensive public feedback, including an online survey that received 341 responses and targeted walkshops with peak bodies, residents, and businesses.

Heritage Workshop actively supported this public dialogue throughout the project lifecycle, which included our founding director, Dr James Lesh, joining the critical Open House Melbourne panel discussion, Challenging Heritage or Heritage Challenges? with leading architects Kerstin Thompson and Patrick Kennedy.

James Lesh with Patrick Kennedy and Kerstin Thompson at Trades Hall for the City of Melbourne Heritage Strategy Conversations, supported by Open House Melbourne.

This level of continuous advisory demonstrates our commitment to equipping government, communities and property owners with forward-looking resources.

By contributing across the two-year project—from establishing the initial framework to facilitating public discourse—we have helped position Melbourne as a global leader in urban heritage.

The result is a culturally rigorous policy that ensures heritage actively contributes to the economic and social vitality of a growing city.

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Navigate Planning in the City of Melbourne with Confidence: Heritage Workshop understands the City of Melbourne's evolving heritage expectations. If you're a property owner or developer seeking commercial and statutory clarity within the municipality, contact Dr James Lesh and our team for independent, highly targeted advisory on your next project.

Strategic Policy Formulation for Government: We also partner with local governments and institutional custodians across Australia to author rigorous, future-focused heritage strategies. Reach out to Heritage Workshop to discuss how our "Next-Generation Conservation" methodology can equip your council or organisation with actionable, localised, people-centred heritage policy.