Parklands Plan of Management

The Parklands at Sydney Olympic Park are subject to a statutory Plan of Management.  The Plan of Management is required and authorised by the Sydney Olympic Park Authority Act (2001), and was adopted by the NSW Minister for State Development and endorsed by the NSW Minister for the Environment in January 2003. The Plan of Management for the Parklands incorporates the Plan of Management for the Newington Nature Reserve prepared under the National Parks and Wildlife Act (1974). 

The Parklands provide 425 hectares of public open space, adjacent to the 191 hectares that make up the sporting venues and town centre of Sydney Olympic Park.  The Plan of Management divides the Parklands up into seventeen logical Management Precincts in order to enhance marketing and visitation opportunities, highlight the different cultural and ecological elements they contain, and to facilitate the different uses and activities the Parklands are intended to support.  The identification of these Management Precincts should not reduce the significance of the various dynamic and inter-related systems found on the site, but make routine management operations more appropriate, effective and efficient.

The Plan of Management recognises that the majority of the physical landscape of the Parklands is not the result of natural, unplanned or incremental development.  It is the deliberate result of remediating waste industrial land, acquiring Naval property of heritage significance and conserving disturbed remnant natural areas to create a series of different places consistent with the planned concept for the Parklands.  The Plan also recognizes  the Parklands are new and evolving and some future uses are yet to be imagined and some of the environmental complexity of the site is not yet fully understood.

The Plan of Management is the predominant statutory instrument controlling the use and management of the Parklands. The Act requires all uses and activities in the Parklands to be consistent with the provisions of the Plan.  The Plan recognises that in addition to the Plan there are various other statutory obligations applicable to the Parklands.  Where these obligations are not in conflict or not inconsistent with the Plan they must be complied with in addition to the requirements of the Plan. Where these obligations are in conflict or are inconsistent with the Plan they are effectively invalid. The Plan will take precedence.

There is also a concept plan that sets out what sort of place the Parklands should be and what sort of uses the Parklands should be available for.   The concept for the Parklands is set out in Parklands 2020 which updates, elaborates on and replaces the Millennium Parklands Concept Plan (Hassell 1997). Parklands 2020 suggests how the future of the Parklands can be shaped.  A key function of the Plan of Management is to guide and facilitate the practical implementation of the vision and concepts of Parklands 2020.  As such, Parklands 2020 is an important external reference point for the Plan of Management, in addition to the many relevant legislative and regulatory instruments.

For more information view the Parklands 2020 page.

Parklands Plan of Management - PDF Downloads