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You are here: Home / UrbanGrowth, SMDA & RWA Plans & Activities / Built Environment Plan Phase 1 - The State Significant Sites / Australian Technology Park / Locomotive Workshop Redevelopment / Use of Innovation Plaza as external Brewdog pub seating – Exhibition until 20 January

Use of Innovation Plaza as external Brewdog pub seating – Exhibition until 20 January

The approval for permanent use of Innovation Plaza for this use is currently on exhibition as a State Significant Development Modification (Mod 11) for the Locomotive Workshops rather than a DA through Council. The long term use proposal is on exhibition until January Friday 20 January 2023.

Use of Innovation Plaza as external Brewdog pub seating – Exhibition until 20 January 

If you have been to the pub in Bays 1 & 2 North, you will notice that there is seating in Innovation Plaza even though the DA for this seating has yet not been approved. The pub is operating on a temporary basis in accordance with the post-Covid provisions of State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008 which permit temporary outdoor dining in areas across Sydney until 31 December 2023. 

The approval for permanent use of Innovation Plaza for this use is currently on exhibition as a State Significant Development Modification (Mod 11) for the Locomotive Workshops rather than a DA through Council. The long term use proposal is on exhibition until January Friday 20 January 2023

We have posted the Council submission for this DA on the REDWatch website - Council Submission on Innovation Plaza Seating Exhibition until 20 Jan 2023. Council have raised a number of concerns especially about the proposed operation after 10pm.

Patrons and neighbours will have the opportunity over Christmas and New Year to form a view on the application for this long-term use and make a submission through the major projects' website. 

Innovation Plaza – a planning shemozzle - REDWatch Comment

State and Council planning are always in a complex dance when the NSW Government decides that the Department of Planning (DPE) should make the big planning decisions rather than Council. In the case of South Eveleigh, DPE handle the decisions about the redevelopment of the Locomotive Workshop but leave the use DA to the City of Sydney Council.  

In the case of Innovation Plaza, Mirvac wanted to put built structures and seating into Innovation Plaza, so they put a State Significant Development Application to DPE which was exhibited as Mod 7. REDWatch objected in our REDWatch Submission on Loco Mod 7 encroachment on Public Space on the grounds that the public space is presumably protected by easements and positive covenants put in place by UrbanGrowth. REDWatch approached the Council planners to see if Council would enforce the easement that was enforceable only by them. We were advised that Council supported such activation so would not enforce the easement. 

In the end the State Significant Development over-rode the protections put in place by UrbanGrowth and the public recreation zone land zoning. The approval permitted a scaled back use of Innovation plaza for seating and some removable structures. The final use approval was to be made by the relevant consent authority which would normally be Council as it was for the operation of the pub. 

It turns out that Council could not deal with the DA because, as the current application explains: “Innovation Plaza is located in a public recreation zone where the proposed food and drink premises use is prohibited and in which the City of Sydney does not have the ability to approve the proposal or a footway dining application. The NSW Department of Planning and Environment (The Department) has the ability to approve the proposed use in Innovation Plaza under section 4.38 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act). Accordingly, the application is made as a modification to SSD 8517 rather than as a DA to the City of Sydney”.  

So, rather than a DA being assessed by the Council’s planning panel, we have a further modification to the SSDA because only DPE has the power to over-ride the prohibited use restriction, which is in the land use zoning that DPE decided was OK to over-ride when it dealt with the earlier Modification. 

Irrespective of what your views are about on street dining and street drinking or the use of Innovation Plaza for such purposes, there are questions about what purpose do “protections” like land use zoning, easements and positive covenants really provide to the community if Council planners don’t seek to enforce them and state government over-rides them. The winner out of all this is likely to be Mirvac South Eveleigh and maybe its tenant, Brewdog pub, which look likely to get an extra 220 pub seats in a public recreation zone which it is not paying rent on. It’s a good deal if you can get it! 

As we have said in the previous section, people have the opportunity over Christmas and New Year to form a view on this use of Innovation Plaza and to make a submission through the major projects' website until January Friday 20 January 2023. 

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