If your house is older than sixty years, the law already has an opinion about it. That surprises many Johannesburg homeowners — usually at the moment a builder is about to take out a wall.
Much of my practice is alterations to older homes in Parktown, Westcliff, Saxonwold, Houghton, Melrose and the suburbs around them, and I recently completed a Master's in Heritage Studies because this work has become such a large part of what I do. This is the conversation I have with almost every new client who owns an older house.
What counts as “heritage”?
Under South Africa's National Heritage Resources Act, any structure older than sixty years is protected in a general way: you may not alter or demolish it without a permit from the provincial heritage resources authority. In Gauteng that authority is the PHRA-G. Your house does not need a blue plaque, a famous architect or a listing for this to apply — age alone is enough.
Some houses carry further protection because they are formally declared heritage sites, or because they fall inside an area with its own heritage controls. Those cases ask for more care, but the principle is the same: the authority wants to understand what is significant about the building before it agrees to change.
Why this matters before you renovate
A heritage permit is a separate process from municipal building-plan approval, and the municipality will generally want to see it before passing plans for an older house. Leave it out of your programme and the whole project waits.
The more important reason is design. The features that make an older house worth owning — the proportions of its rooms, its roof, its stone, its steel windows, its relationship to the garden — are the same features the heritage authority cares about. A scheme that works with them tends to be approved more easily, and tends to be a better house.
The best additions to old houses are clearly of their own time, and clearly respectful of the one they've joined.
Common pitfalls
- Starting work first. Unauthorised work on a protected structure can lead to stop-work orders and an instruction to reinstate what was removed.
- Treating the application as a form. It is an argument. It should explain what is significant about the house, what you propose, and why the proposal is sympathetic.
- Imitating the old too closely — or ignoring it altogether. Pastiche and indifference are both weak answers. An addition can be light, glazed and contemporary and still take its pitch, rhythm and materials from the original.
- Forgetting the neighbours and the street. In the older suburbs, the streetscape is often part of what is being protected.
How I approach a heritage alteration
I begin by reading the house: when it was built, how it has been changed since, which parts are original and which are later and less precious. That tells us where we have freedom. New work goes where it does least harm and most good — very often at the back, opening the house to its garden — and the original fabric is repaired rather than replaced wherever possible.
I then prepare and submit the heritage application alongside the council drawings, and deal with both authorities on your behalf. Clients tell me this is the part of the process they are most relieved to hand over.
Thinking about altering an older home?
If you own — or are about to buy — an older house in Johannesburg and want to know what is possible, I'm happy to walk through it with you. The earlier that conversation happens, the more options you have.
