Guides: what to know before you start

How much does a home extension cost in Sydney?

The question I get asked more than almost any other: how much is this going to cost? And the honest answer is — it depends on the scope and the quality. But there are real costs to investigate before you start building.

Heritage — how does it affect my home day to day?

When people move into a character or period home for the first time they often discover that heritage and planning controls can affect more than just major renovations. Painting the front of your home, replacing windows, putting up a new fence, adding solar panels — all of these can be caught by the controls.

Developer pressure in Heritage Conservation Areas — should you sell?

If your home is in an established character home area near a train station — through the Inner West, South West, North Shore, or Bayside corridors — there’s a good chance a developer has already knocked on your door.

The offer can look compelling.

But before signing anything, it’s worth understanding how these arrangements actually work — and what you might be giving up.

Why the character of your street is worth protecting

While the value of living in a heritage street goes well beyond the sale price, properties in established character home areas across Sydney consistently command a premium — but there’s more to it than that.

The authenticity, the sense of permanence, the connection to history — these are things that can’t be manufactured.

The heritage planning process in detail — pre-DA, Heritage Impact Statement, fabric studies, and archaeological investigation

Once a Development Application (DA) is the right pathway for works on a heritage property, the next question is what that application actually needs to contain. Heritage DAs involve more documentation than a standard application — a Heritage Impact Statement at minimum, and depending on the property, possibly a fabric study or an archaeological investigation.

Heritage building styles — what is your home, and why does it matter?

One of the things I genuinely enjoy about heritage work is the buildings themselves — the extraordinary range of styles across Sydney’s established suburbs, and what each one tells you about the period it came from. Colonial Georgian, Victorian Italianate, Federation, Art Deco, California Bungalow, Mid-century Modern, Sydney School — each one has its own character and its own story.

Working with heritage homes — common misconceptions worth clearing up

There are a handful of questions I hear regularly from people who’ve just bought a heritage property or who are thinking about works on one. That you can’t change anything. That getting a heritage Development Application (DA) is next to impossible. That the controls apply equally to every corner of the property. In practice, heritage is considerably more workable than people expect.

Can I renovate internally without approval — heritage fabric, structural work, and high-value features

The internal renovation question comes up all the time — and for a lot of people in Heritage Conservation Areas across Sydney the answer is genuinely reassuring. Many internal works don’t need council approval at all. But there are things to be aware of — heritage fabric, structural considerations, and high-value original features that carry real weight in any heritage assessment.

Different levels of heritage protection in NSW — what applies to your home?

When people find out their home is in a heritage area, the first question is almost always the same: what does that actually mean for me? And the honest answer is — it depends which type of heritage protection applies. Heritage Conservation Area, local listing, State Heritage Register — they work quite differently from each other.

I want to renovate my property — how does heritage protection affect what I can do?

If you’re in a Heritage Conservation Area and you want to renovate or extend — in most cases, you can.

Heritage and the planning process — CDC, DA, or exempt?

One of the first practical questions on any heritage project is which planning pathway applies — can you use Complying Development, or do you need a full Development Application (DA)? For most heritage properties in Sydney metropolitan council areas, the answer on a Complying Development Certificate (CDC) is no. A DA is the pathway. But some works are exempt from approval entirely, which genuinely surprises people.

Designing in a Heritage Conservation Area — what councils actually want to see

Here’s something that surprises a lot of people when they first start working through a heritage project: council doesn’t want you to build a reproduction.