The Price of Heritage Impact Statements

Heritage Impact Statements (HIS) are required for any development application involving a listed heritage item, a property within a heritage conservation area or sometimes when your property is next door or in the vicinity of a heritage item. The cost of these reports can often be something that brings people to tears, particularly when the project is small. We often hear from clients who have sought quotes with other consulting firms, where the cost of the report is more than the cost of the actual works (fences and carports are a big one).

We always try and help our clients by keeping our prices low for our heritage impact statements and we thought it would be a good opportunity to share some tips and tricks on how you can get the best price for your report.

Why do Heritage Impact Statements cost so much?

There are many reasons the cost of a heritage impact statement can be astronomical including:

The time and research involved in investigating the heritage item.

Every heritage item or heritage conservation area is listed within the Local Environmental Plan of the Council it is located within. Each of these items has information relating to the item that is meant to provide details of the history, heritage significance and heritage value of the item. This information is stored on the Heritage NSW website in documents called Heritage Inventory Sheets and is available to the public via a search area on the website. These data sheets vary in relation to the extent of information on each item and conservation areas and some data sheets are simply non existent. The result of the lack of information means that certain projects require a lot of additional research through local studies, libraries and online resources to find the required history and information on a particular item. This research is where the bulk of the cost of a report comes from.

There aren’t a lot of heritage advisors

The simple truth with heritage impact statement costs is that is largely to do with the lack of competition within the industry. There are only a handful of consultants with the relevant experience and aptitude to prepare these reports and as a result they are able to charge large amount of money for the report due to a supply and demand issue. 

The cost and time to attend a site

The cost and time to attend a site to take photos and get a feel for the site can often be something that adds considerably to the cost of a report, particularly when the consultant is busy or is not in the general area. These site visits can often take up half a day with travel and taking photographs and are generally charged at a call out rate to take into account the time taken away from other projects. 

How can you reduce your cost?

The first way to reduce the cost is to get quotes from a wide range of consultants and when you seek a quote provide as much information as possible (Plans and details of the work you are undertaking as well as any history of the property you might have). Through obtaining a wide range of quotes you can sort through and pick the best consultant for the best price. Please be aware that not all consultants have the experience in heritage required for a thorough heritage impact statements.

The next thing you can do is offer to do provide photos and details of the site if required. This can often reduce the cost of the report if you are willing to provide what ever photographic material is required from the heritage consultants. Sometimes this might not be possible for your project due to various complexities that might only be evident with a site inspection, but for simple projects this is a good way to reduce the cost.

Provide any research you already have about the site. Sometimes when people purchase heritage properties they obtain historical documents with the purchase, these documents (including photos, records of ownership and anything else) are great sources of information. Additionally, if the property has had previous heritage impact statements prepared, these are good to share with the consultant as they can often be referenced or used as a guide for research.

The last piece of advice would be to share other quotes you received with the consultant. This can help more experienced or preferred consultants to price match or better a quote to get the chance on working on your project. These consultants love heritage developments and love delving into the research of sites (I know I do) and often will match their fees just to have a chance to learn more about the history of the property or the area. 

How can we help reduce your cost?

We try and market our heritage impact statements based on the actual time they will take and minimise the inflated price of our reports. We are happy to utilise your photographs for most sites unless we feel that a site inspection is crucial and have often reduce our cost to win a job we want to work on. We also don’t add a postcode tax to any of our projects and keep ourselves transparent by including our prices on our website (please note these are starting prices though, as every project is different). We also offer reduced prices when our clients engage us for both the heritage impact statement and the statement of environmental effects as there are some overlaps with these two reports. The bottom line is that we do everything we can to reduce the cost of these reports and base our prices on real data and not an inflated price. We prefer to keep our clients happy and development going in a forward direction rather than putting up road blocks with our prices. 

If you would like a realistic quote for your next project then simply fill out our form below or send us an email at admin@theplanningcollective.com.au