NSW s Bays Precinct biggest project since Sydney Olympics

NSW’s Bays Precinct biggest project since Sydney OlympicsNSW will have a ‘showcase project of urban renewal’ when Sydney’s inner-harbour Bays Precinct gets a makeover from international experts, said the Property Council of Australia. The Property Council also praised the NSW Government’s proposal to engage world-leading urban renewal experts for The Bays Precinct Urban Renewal Program.The initiative, which will transform the waterfront west of the CBD in a 30-year program, will be led by UrbanGrowth NSW and will deliver mixed-use facilities and re-use sterilised land.”We can’t think in the short term,” said UrbanGrowth NSW’s CEO, David Pitchford. “The NSW Government must be applauded for its commitment to a 30-year urban transformation program – that’s practically unheard-of.”Property Council NSW executive director Glenn Byres noted that exemplary projects in design, sustainability and place-making are already occurring on the harbour foreshore at precincts such as Barangaroo.”But the ambitious plan to engage best-practice thinking from around the world should produce another step-change in urban renewal. Sites like this are rare and precious and will benefit from the combination of local expertise and international exposure,” he added.Pitchford said The Bays Precinct Urban Renewal Program is a transformational project of a scale and scope that Sydney hasn’t seen since the 2000 Olympics.”It represents a game changer for Sydney, with the potential to create the next big destination after the iconic Sydney Opera House. It’s an area that everyone in Sydney knows has been largely neglected for too long.”The project will not only revitalise Sydney’s property stock, it will also transform “one of the last major landholdings in metropolitan Sydney”, Pitchford said. In addition, it will boost the local economy and create jobs, with early projections of 15,000 new homes and 10,000 new jobs.”There’s no doubt that urban transformation of this scale will deliver a boost to the local economy and create jobs – whether in its construction or in the new recreation, retail, commercial, maritime or tourism places that are created,” Pitchford said.”But it goes beyond the local economy – the entire state and the nation will benefit.”The Bays Precinct is located 1.8 km from the Sydney CBD, in Sydney’s inner harbour. Four times the size of Barangaroo, it is the largest single project since the Sydney Olympics.A summit is planned for November this year to draw upon the expertise of international, national and local urban renewal specialists.”It is specifically intended to inform The Bays Precinct Urban Renewal Program, but there’s no doubt that ideas from the summit will also spill over into our thinking across our whole portfolio,” Pitchford said. “It’s an opportunity to generate capacity and a level of thinking across the nation that’s not here.”