Honeysuckle is a near completed 50 hectare residential and commercial

urban renewal Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...

redevelopment of former industrial land along

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

Harbour in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

History

The precinct gained its name from the honeysuckle plant, ''

Banksia integrifolia ''Banksia integrifolia'', commonly known as the coast banksia, is a species of tree that grows along the east coast of Australia. One of the most widely distributed ''Banksia'' species, it occurs between Victoria and Central Queensland in a ...

''. Before the arrival of British settlers, it was an important place for the

Awabakal The Awabakal people , are those Aboriginal Australians who identify with or are descended from the Awabakal tribe and its clans, Indigenous to the coastal area of what is now known as the Hunter Region of New South Wales. Their traditional te ...

and

Worimi The Worimi (also spelt Warrimay) people are Aboriginal Australians from the eastern Port Stephens and Great Lakes regions of coastal New South Wales, Australia. Before contact with settlers, their people extended from Port Stephens in the sou ...

people, the traditional owners of the land. Honeysuckle Point was largely unsettled during the early European settlement of Newcastle, and industrial activity was not seen in the area until the 1850s. In 1857, train maintenance facilities were established there with the advent of railway, with Newcastle being the centre of the separate northern NSW network until 1889. With the industrialization of Newcastle, for most of the 20th century, it was dominated by the Honeysuckle railway workshops, wool stores, cargo sheds and warehouses. In 1992, the Honeysuckle Development Corporation was established by the NSW government in order to manage the urban development of the area. In 2003, it was merged with the Government's Regional Land Development Corporation to form the Hunter Development Corporation (HDC). It is currently part of the Hunter and Central Coast Development Corporation (HCCDC) since its merger with the Central Coast Development Corporation in 2016, in the framework of the ''Hunter Regional Plan 2036''.

Development

Since the 1990s, more than 50 hectares of former industrial land has been developed with private investment of $1 billion, generating an estimated $3 billion in economic activity. The overall Honeysuckle development has focused on the connection of the waterfront with Newcastle's CBD. "Honeysuckle HQ", a priority project for the HCCDC, encisages the creation of diverse mix of residential, commercial and retail outcomes; along with two hectares of harbourside land for public space including a waterfront promenade, two new parks and the naturalisation of Cottage Creek. A number of heritage-listed buildings along Newcastle Harbour has been preserved with the project, including the former railway work sheds which now house The Forum, the Newcastle Regional Museum and space for community activities

Criticism

The Honeysuckle development utilised a top-down, modernist, rational model based on similar

projects worldwide, such as New York's

Battery Park City Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the nor ...

, London’s

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is a financial area of London, England, located in the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The Greater London Authority defines it as part of London's central business district, alongside Central London. Alongside ...

, and Melbourne’s Docklands. The commonality between these developments is that they focused on physical planning around city centres where new buildings, markets, and hotels attempt to 'revitalise' the city. Studies suggest this planning approach can focus on the technical expertise at the expense of public participation in the decision making process.Taylor, N, ''Urban Planning Theory Since 1945'', London 1998 pp.75-91

References

{{coord missing, New South Wales Newcastle, New South Wales Urban renewal