On 31 July the NSW Government issued its 96-page draft Pyrmont Peninsula Place Strategy, which will be open for exhibition until 13 September. The Planning Strategy is intended to guide the transformation of the Pyrmont Peninsula over the years to 2041.
According to the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Rob Stokes:
Everyone accepts that change is inevitable – Pyrmont always has – but everyone agrees that the time is right to improve access to the harbour and to public spaces, to active (and public) transport, to education and jobs, and to provide a better built environment that respects the layers of history that have made Pyrmont the jewel that it is.
Some say that Pyrmont is a village, some say it is an extension to the CBD. I reckon Pyrmont is both of these things, and more. Our plans for Pyrmont protect its past, and direct where change is going to occur, along with the public benefits that are necessary to ensure that as Pyrmont grows, it will become an even better place for people to work, live and play.
Noble sentiments, but, as always, the devil is in the detail. In this regard, see https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/Pyrmont.
But whatever one thinks, it is at least refreshing to see that the Government (or at least the Minister) seems intent on actually planning something, rather than responding to ad hoc unsolicited proposals from developers – the most recent having been the hare-brained Star Casino proposal to erect a $529 million 66-storey hotel/residential tower. This was rightly and appropriately knocked back by the Department of Planning and the Independent Planning Commission, but it was a close call.
Of particular interest to us is that for the purposes of the draft Place Strategy, ‘Pyrmont Peninsula’ is defined to include parts of Glebe, namely the head of Blackwattle Bay (the proposed site for the relocation of the Sydney Fish Market) and Wentworth Park.
Article by Ted McKeown, from The Glebe Society Bulletin, September 2020, and also published on The Glebe Society website.