The ACT heritage council has been tasked with considering the impacts of climate change and the environment for the first time when they decide how buildings are to be preserved.
Heritage Minister Rebecca Vassarotti has issued a statement of expectations to the interim council, which sets out 10 priorities for the territory's heritage system.
The council has been told to consider climate change as part of its work, while also simplifying information and maximising certainty for heritage property owners.
"Consider environmental, climate change and building code drivers in heritage conservation, including sympathetic options that achieve both heritage conservation and other objectives, and management decisions and policy that are balanced, contemporary and more climate ready," the statement tells council members.
Restoring trust in the heritage council, strengthening the role of First Nations people in protecting their cultural heritage and improving relationships with heritage property owners are among what Ms Vassarotti's statement describes as "live priorities".
The council has also been called upon to "promote the value of heritage in achieving wider government policy outcomes including social, economic, environmental and cultural outcomes" and contribute to a new heritage strategy.
"The statement aims to provide guidance and clarity to the council on the priorities, standards and outcomes to be delivered over the term of appointment. The statement is not intended to impede or interfere with the council in the discharge of its responsibilities, but rather to assist and focus it," the statement, signed last month, said.
The statement will not change the legislated criteria by which the heritage council must assess heritage nominations.
Other priorities include involvement in the annual heritage festival, leading the heritage sector and providing guidance on how to create a "policy framework that creates an efficient working environment, embraces best practice, enhances the protection and conservation of heritage values" and is accessible.
Ms Vassarotti has previously said heritage controls in the territory needed to strike a balance between preserving buildings and allowing owners to adapt them to a warming climate.
"It would be a perverse outcome indeed if we preserved older, heritage buildings so that they were adversely affected through very high energy bills, poor occupant comfort, and poor resilience in the face of a changing Canberra climate," Ms Vassarotti told the Legislative Assembly in April 2022.
Sophie Lewis, the ACT's commissioner for sustainability and the environment, in March told an Assembly inquiry the territory's heritage laws needed to explicitly recognise the risks of climate change.
"A more holistic and nuanced approach to how heritage and environmental matters are considered in the planning system could provide co-benefits to both areas," Dr Lewis said in a submission.
An ACT homeowner told the inquiry he had been limited in installing solar panels on the roof of his two-decade-old house, which is not heritage-registered but is located in a heritage area, by the heritage council.
"It seems to me that there needs to be a balance reached between maintaining heritage values and achieving the territory objectives of becoming truly sustainable," Graham Mannall said in a submission.
Former heritage council chair Duncan Marshall returned to lead an interim council in April, after Ms Vassarotti lost confidence in the former council and dismissed its members after a damning review in November 2022 found evidence of unprofessional behaviour.
