Nominate a heritage place or object

Nominate a heritage place or object

Anyone can suggest a place or object for the ACT Heritage Register by filling out a nomination form. Find out about the detailed Heritage assessment process.

A summary of the nomination and assessment process is below.

Assessment process

Information checking and Council consideration

Once the nomination is submitted, it is checked to make sure all information needed is included. If more information is needed, ACT Heritage staff will contact you.

Once a nomination passes an information check, the Council must decide whether to accept or dismiss it. If your nomination is accepted, it goes to the assessment stage.

Assessment

The nominated place or object must meet at least one of the Heritage Act 2004's significance criteria to pass the assessment process.

The Council, working with ACT Heritage staff, will:

• assess if the place or object meets the significance criteria
• write a brief statement for each criteria stating if it meets the criteria
• summarise the significance in a written statement if it does meet the criteria.

Provisional registration

If the place or object meets at least one of the significance criteria, it becomes provisionally registered.

At this stage the Council will notify interested persons, which includes owners and nominators.

The Council must also engage in public consultation before making a final decision. Find out more about provisional registrations.

If the place or object does not meet at least one of the significance criteria, it is not provisionally registered.

Council will notify interested persons if it decides not to provisionally register a place or object.

Consultation

During public consultation, the Council asks for feedback from the broader community and property owners.

For Aboriginal places or objects, the Council will consult with each Representative Aboriginal Organisation.

Once the Council receives feedback, it reviews the assessment again to see if any changes are needed.

Report to the minister

After the public consultation, the Council will report to the ACT heritage minister on:

• if they still think the place or object should be registered (the decision)
• any issues raised by the community during the consultation
• any changes to the assessment because of the consultation.

The minister may ask the Council to consider aspects of their decision further. However the final decision is made by the Council, as it is an independent statutory body.

Registration

If the Council is satisfied that a place or object has heritage significance, it can be registered on the ACT Heritage Register.

The Council must publish its decision on the ACT Government’s Legislation Register within 5 working days. Interested community members will be sent a copy within 15 working days.

Interested community members includes owners, managers and anyone who made a submission during the public consultation process.

Nomination and decision timeframes

A nomination can be made at any time.

There is no statutory timeframe for the assessment stage to be completed.

Statutory timeframes apply for:

• Public consultations - run for at least 4 weeks, following the decision for provisional registration. This period can be extended if required.
• Provisional registration - a final decision must be made with 3 months for a place, and 9 months for a precinct. These timeframes can be extended if needed. If the final decision is not made in time it reverts to a nominated place.
• Publishing Council decisions - Council must publish the provisional and the final decision on the Legislation Register within 5 working days.

Change or cancel a registration

Changes or damages to significant features of a place or object, or new information about it, may mean that a registration needs to be updated or cancelled. The steps are similar to the nomination process, and a nomination must be accepted before the Council can make an assessment. To start this process, you can fill out a cancellation proposal form.

More information

Find fact sheets with more details about heritage nomination, registration, and implications.

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