City Fringe upzoning

Written by

Charbel Abousleiman

Urban Planning Lawyer & Buyers Agent

05/02/2024

Fink Group have successfully rezoned its landholding at 85 – 93 Commonwealth Street in Surry Hills.

Situated on 571 square metres and 200 metres west of Museum Station, after being rezoned last week, the site now benefits from a 4.5:1 FSR – a 1.5:1 uplift on the site’s historical FSR.

Strategically, the rezoning:

will retain and expand employment uses within Surry Hills, helping the City meet strong demand experienced at the fringes of Central Sydney from creative, digital and technology industries,
will deliver an improved built form that will improve the efficiency of the building by delivering high quality employment floor space to future occupants, and
by retaining the existing building, creating additional floorspace and associated refurbishment of the building, opportunities will exist to include a number of sustainability outcomes.

The sustainability provisions include a requirement to pursue a net zero emissions target and achieve a NABERS 5-star energy rating, with opportunities to implement onsite solar PV, electrification of building services, new air filtration system to protect occupants from bushfire smoke and installation of highly efficient water fixtures

Aerial shot of the triangle 571m2 Surry Hills site

To facilitate delivery of additional employment generating floorspace in City Fringe, only employment uses will be permitted on the site, meaning residential and tourist/visitor accommodation are not permitted. The reason for this restriction is to rebalance the local precinct with office space which is in short supply.

The site is on the fringe of Surry Hills and Central/Haymarket precincts, allowing for an opportunity to engage with the diverse urban contexts of each precinct. The site itself is an irregular triangle in shape with a pronounced fall in levels from the Commonwealth Street frontage to the Hunt Street frontage. On the site exists a 4 x storey masonry building sitting boundary-to-boundary.

The fresh rezoning is made possible by high quality recent developments at the neighbouring Paramount Café and Hotel and Griffiths Tea building, which support the use case for additional office space to complement the vibrant local streetscape. The new planning controls look to align the scale and density of its localised city block and add to the desired mixed-use balance of Surry Hills.

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