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Commonwealth legislation
This Act has been repealed and is no longer in force. It is retained for historical reference.
The Cockatoo Island Management Plan is a statutory framework to conserve the island’s significant convict and dockyard heritage, manage industrial contamination, and enable public access, events, and sympathetic adaptive reuse. It balances protection with limited, reversible development so the site remains safe, accessible, and potentially part of the Australian Convict Sites World Heritage listing.
The Plan most directly affects the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, tenants and event operators, heritage specialists and contractors, visitors, and nearby communities through controls on use, access and remediation.
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Direct links to the current provisions in Cockatoo Island Management Plan.
Sourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.
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Sydney Harbour Federation Trust
Management Plan – Cockatoo Island
23 June 2010
The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust acknowledges the development of this Cockatoo Island Management Plan by staff at the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, and is grateful to all those organisations and individuals who have contributed. A special thankyou is given to the members of the Community Advisory Committee and Friends of Cockatoo Island for assisting with the development of the Plan and for their invaluable comments and suggestions throughout the drafting period. Thank you also to the members of the community who attended information sessions or provided comment, and to the staff of the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage, and the Arts, who made a valuable contribution to the preparation of the Plan.
Authors:
Staff of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust
Main Consultant Providers:
Government Architect’s Office, NSW Department of Commerce
Godden Mackay Logan Pty Ltd
John Jeremy
For full list of consultants see Related Studies section of Plan
Copyright © Sydney Harbour Federation Trust 2010.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without
written permission from the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. Requests
and enquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to
the Director Communications, Sydney Harbour Federation Trust PO Box
607, Mosman, NSW 2088 or email to info@harbourtrust.gov.au
For more information about the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust or to
view this publication online, visit the website at:
Table of Contents
On 21st August 2003 the Minister for the Environment and Heritage approved a Comprehensive Plan for the harbour sites managed by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust (the Trust). The plan, which was prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust Act 2001, sets out the Trust’s vision for the sites under its control.
A requirement of the Trust’s Comprehensive Plan is that more detailed management plans are prepared for specific precincts, places or buildings. In addition to this the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999 requires the Trust to make plans to protect and manage the National Heritage values and Commonwealth Heritage values of National and Commonwealth Heritage Places. Cockatoo Island is identified on both the National and the Commonwealth Heritage Lists.
Cockatoo Island is also one of eleven sites that will form a proposed serial nomination of Australian Convict Sites for World Heritage listing. This plan includes measures to protect the potential World Heritage values of Cockatoo Island.
Accordingly, the purpose of this Management Plan is to guide the outcomes proposed in the Trust’s Comprehensive Plan, to satisfy the requirements of Schedules 5A and 7A of the EPBC Act Regulations, 2000 and to be consistent with the National and Commonwealth Heritage management principles.
The Comprehensive Plan proposes the revival of Cockatoo Island as a working maritime site and as a functioning, active part of Sydney’s cultural life. Its heritage values are to be protected and the island is to be freely accessible to the general public. The island’s rich history will be recognised and will inspire its revival.
The island will become home to an array of complementary uses and activities, ranging from those which tap into the island’s past, such as maritime and related industries, to entirely new uses such as cultural events, short-stay accommodation and restaurants.
In keeping with tradition, existing buildings and structures will be adaptively reused. Significant heritage artefacts will be conserved and will form an important aspect of the island’s attractions as well as facilitating people’s understanding of its past. Parkland and vantage points will provide opportunities for people to enjoy the island and the harbour.
The island’s future has generated great public interest and passion. However, its planning is also recognised by many as challenging. This is due to the:
Having regard for these complexities and the length of time during which this plan will be implemented, the Trust concluded that it is not desirable to attempt to identify detailed outcomes for the whole island. Accordingly, this plan aims to provide a long-term vision and a framework for decision making that is sufficiently flexible to accommodate new ideas and change and that is consistent with and does not adversely impact on the statutory heritage values of the place. The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust is committed to the conservation of the National and Commonwealth Heritage values of its places, and this commitment is reflected in its Act, its corporate planning documents and processes. This Management Plan, which satisfies sections 341V and 341S and of the EPBC Act 1999, provides the framework and basis for the conservation and management of Cockatoo Island in recognition of its heritage values.
The Trusts’ Heritage Strategy, which details the Trusts’ objectives and strategic approach for the conservation of heritage values, was prepared under section 341ZA of the EPBC Act 1999 and accepted by the Minister. The policies in this plan support the directions of the Heritage Strategy, and indicate the objectives for identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to all generations of the Commonwealth and National Heritage values of the place.
This plan was developed by the Trust in 2008 and reviewed by the Australian Heritage Council in December 2008. Revisions were made and the Plan is now considered to be consistent with the National and Commonwealth Heritage management principles. Notice of this Plan was published in the Government Gazette on 23 June 2010 and the Plan takes effect from that date.
The land covered by the Management Plan is shown by broken black edging on the plan at Figure 1. All of the land including the bed of the harbour is within Lot 1 DP 549630 and is in the ownership of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.
To achieve the Trust’s vision for the island this Management Plan aims to:
In doing this, it also aims to:
This Management Plan is the middle level of a three tiered comprehensive planning system developed to guide the future of the Trust’s lands.
The other levels are:
This Management Plan has to be interpreted in conjunction with the Trust’s Comprehensive Plan, in particular the Outcomes identified in Part 5 of the Trust’s Comprehensive Plan and the Objectives and Policies in Part 3.
The Outcomes diagram in Part 5 of the Trust’s Comprehensive Plan for Cockatoo Island is reproduced at Figure 2. Conservation policies in this plan provide guidance on how these outcomes can be managed in a way that protects, conserves, presents and transmits to all generations the National and Commonwealth Heritage values.
The Objectives and Policies most relevant to this Management Plan are those relating to working harbour, tourism, contamination, water quality and catchment protection, cultural heritage, adaptive re-use of places and buildings, access, open space and recreation, and education. These Objectives and Policies were addressed during the assessment of the site and are discussed in more detail in the relevant sections of this plan.
There are a number of overarching Policies and Guidelines foreshadowed in the Trust’s Comprehensive Plan that will be developed over the lifetime of the Trust and that will also guide the conservation and adaptive reuse of the island. Current relevant policies are:
This Management Plan has regard for these existing policies. If or when other Trust Policies and Guidelines are developed this plan will be reviewed to ensure that they do not impact adversely on the National and Commonwealth heritage values.
All ‘actions’ on Trust land, undertaken by either the Trust or on behalf of the Trust, are controlled by the EPBC Act.
Section 26 of the EPBC Act 1999 protects Commonwealth land from actions taken on or outside it that may have a significant impact on the environment. Section 28 protects the environment from actions taken by the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth agency that may have a significant impact.
The environment is defined to include:
a) ecosystems and their constituent parts, including people and communities; and
b) natural and physical resources; and
c) the qualities and characteristics of locations, places and areas; and
d) heritage values of places; and
e) the social, economic and cultural aspects of a thing mentioned in paragraph (a), (b), (c) or (d) above.
Section 341ZC of the Act requires the Trust to have regard for the National and Commonwealth Heritage values of a place before it takes an action, and to minimise the impact that the action might have on those values. This plan includes the Commonwealth and National Heritage values taken from the statutory heritage listings of the island.
The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust Act, 2001 specifically excludes any land owned by the Trust from the operations of state planning law. This includes State Policies (SEPPs) and Regional Environmental Plans (REPs) prepared by the State Government and Local Environmental Plans (LEPs) prepared by councils.
Notwithstanding this the Trust has prepared this plan so that it is consistent with both State and local plans. The relevant state statutory plans are:
Sydney Regional Environmental Plan- Sydney Harbour Catchment 2005
This SREP applies to the whole of Sydney Harbour’s waterways, the foreshores and entire harbour catchment. It provides a framework for future planning, development and management of the waterway, heritage items, islands, wetland protection areas and foreshores of Sydney Harbour. Under the SREP, Cockatoo Island is included in the catchment area of Sydney Harbour, as a foreshores and waterways area and is also listed as a strategic foreshore site. The planning principles of the SREP relevant to the island include:
This is an opening excerpt, not the complete document.