Port Kembla Land Transformation Precinct

Proposal

The rezoning of land at Port Kembla Steelworks has been finalised and will facilitate transformation of the land into a high-tech employment hub. The rezoning proposal applies to land located predominantly along Five Islands Road, Port Kembla across about 200 hectares of underutilised industrial lands within the existing Port Kembla Steelworks. It will create up to 30,000 jobs in key industries such as advanced manufacturing, education, technology-based industries and renewable energy-related businesses.

BlueScope lodged the proposal with the Department under the state-assessed rezoning proposal pathway and it was exhibited for public feedback from 5 September to 2 October 2025 for a total of 28 days.

The Department considered 209 submissions in the finalisation of the proposal, and has proceeded with amending the State Environmental Planning Policy (Precincts—Regional) 2021 (Precincts-Regional SEPP) to include:

• Introduction of requirements to support the Wollongong CBD and adjoining centres
• Safeguarding of port operations through excluding the application of complying development within in the CRM and Centenary sub-precincts
• Aligning exempt development uses within the precinct with those permitted under the State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008
• Requiring an addendum to the Master Plan for certain types of development such as education, retail and commercial
• A reduction in thresholds, declaring development greater than $75m as State Significant under the State Environmental Planning Policy (Planning Systems) 2021, reduced from $100 million.

The new planning controls can be found at the NSW legislation webpage.

Submissions

We have summarised the issues raised in submissions and our response is detailed in the Finalisation Report.