By Sergio Olea, owner of Monkeys Roofing and qualified roof plumber (Certificate III in Roof Plumbing). Published 29 October 2026. Last checked 5 November 2026.
A cracked ridge line on a Haberfield bungalow, a quote offering to strip the terracotta and lay concrete tiles for less, and an owner with no idea whether council would ever wear it. In Haberfield it would not, and the reason is not taste. The controls are written down, they are specific about materials, and they are stricter than most owners expect.
Is my Haberfield house actually in a conservation area?
Almost certainly yes. Haberfield is a heritage conservation area in its entirety, listed by Inner West Council as C54, rather than a scattering of individually listed houses. It was the first planned and marketed garden suburb in Australia, with a period of significance running from 1900 to the 1940s. In practice, nearly any roof job in the suburb is heritage work. The same council covers Ashfield next door, where heritage areas such as Ambleside and Holwood still have mostly original unglazed terracotta roofs on Federation and Inter-war houses; see our page on roof repairs in Ashfield.
The Council statement of significance singles out the consistent use of quality materials across the whole suburb: brick, stone, slate and tile. That consistency is exactly what is being protected, which is why a single roof done in the wrong product stands out from the street and why approval is not a formality. Confirm your own address with a Section 10.7 planning certificate before you commit to anything, not with what a neighbour did last year.
What roofing materials am I allowed to use?
Four, and only four. Chapter E2 of the Inner West DCP 2016, controls C17 to C21, limits replacement roofing in Haberfield to unglazed terracotta Marseille tile, terracotta shingle tile, Welsh slate, or non-reflective corrugated galvanised steel, and the steel is only permitted to the rear or on skillion roofs. Concrete tile is not on the list.
The same controls require roof details to be kept: finials, ridge capping and the rest are to be maintained, repaired and reinstated rather than dropped from the design. These rules trace back to the covenants in Richard Stanton’s original subdivision, which is why they read as prescriptively as they do. Worth knowing before you agree to a full replacement: on most Haberfield roofs the terracotta is sound and the mortar is not, so repointing the ridge and hip mortar keeps the original tiles on the house and sidesteps the material question altogether.
Can I add a skylight, a dormer or a solar hot water tank?
Not on the street side. Controls C11 to C15 allow no skylights on the front or side face of the main roof and no dormer windows of any type. Where a skylight is allowed, on a side or rear plane, it is one per plane and it must sit flush with the roof. Control C89 keeps hot water tanks, solar ones included, off the outside of the roof entirely.
Flush means no raised bubble sitting proud of the tiles, which rules out most of the cheap retrofit units. Tanks go in the roof space or somewhere out of public view. If your house already has a compliant rear skylight, none of this applies to upkeep: clearing the glazing of leaf litter and grime is maintenance, not a development application, and the same goes for washing panels that are already installed.
What about asbestos in the old roof and gutters?
Assume it is there until tested. Inner West Council warns that almost any home built or renovated before the mid-1980s contains asbestos, most often as flat and corrugated fibro sheeting in roofing and guttering. A homeowner may remove up to 10 square metres of non-friable material. Beyond that, and for all friable material, a licensed removalist is required by law.
Haberfield’s heritage fabric is early, but rear additions, sheds and gutter runs kept being built for decades afterwards, and that later work is usually where the fibro turns up. The waste side matters too: asbestos is only accepted at specific facilities and by appointment, so disposal has to be planned into the job rather than sorted out on the day the roof comes off.
The short version
In Haberfield the whole suburb is the conservation area, the replacement roof is limited to four named materials, skylights are off the front and side of the main roof, dormers are out, solar and hot water tanks stay off the external roof, and anything pre-1980s should be treated as asbestos until proven otherwise. Repair almost always clears approval faster than replacement.
Sources: Inner West Council C54 Haberfield Heritage Conservation Area, Inner West DCP 2016 Chapter E2 Haberfield, Inner West Council asbestos guidance.
Roof trouble on a Haberfield bungalow? See our Inner West roof repairs or the full list of Inner West roofing services, or call 0452 223 327 for a free quote.
