The fight to stop a ‘parking station for oversized boats' on Sydney Harbour

The Age

26-07-2025

A series of other respondents to the case, including the Hunters Hill Sailing Club, say in separate court documents that the proposed revamp 'will have a substantial adverse impact on sailing and ... the recreational uses' of the harbour.
'[The] size of the vessels proposed is exponentially larger,' they say.
Some would be 'larger than a Parramatta River Class ferry' and others would be 'longer than an articulated bus and higher than a double-decker bus'.
The documents also say the marina expansion would increase waterway congestion and create a navigational safety hazard in the narrow section of the harbour between Woolwich, Cockatoo Island and Spectacle Island, which is extensively and increasingly used by ferries and private boats.
The proposed marina would comprise a '270-metre largely continuous hard enclosure which protrudes into the harbour', the respondents argue.
'Construction and use of a parking station for multistorey boats up to 25 metres long on the foreshore of Kelly's Bush Park is fundamentally incompatible with its natural heritage values.'
The case is listed for a hearing in the NSW Land and Environment Court between September 4 and September 17, including an on-site visit.
Bennett said the community had rallied in a battle reminiscent of the effort to save Kelly's Bush foreshore park, which was spared from development when about a dozen local mothers joined late union organiser Jack Mundey and his 'green bans' movement to block a housing estate in 1971.
She said the earlier proposal had been rejected due to maritime, Aboriginal and bushland heritage concerns, and disrupted views to the state heritage-listed Kelly's Bush Park, and Cockatoo Island.
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'This is one of the most amazing parts of Sydney Harbour; the history, heritage, social activism, and natural environment is absolutely phenomenal. There is no other country that would do this to a site of such significance.'
The Hunters Hill Trust said the revised proposal shifted the marina across 'a large width of the historic Kelly's Bush foreshore [to] effectively occupy approximately 20,000sqm of waterway'.
The mooring of larger boats would 'obliterate the open water and views' from the foreshore and, although 'commercially lucrative', would be 'affordable to only a select clientele', the trust said.
'This unique part of Sydney Harbour must not be allowed to become a permanent parking station for over-sized boats catering for the privileged few, obscuring public views and sight-lines to important heritage items of outstanding natural beauty.'
Woolwich resident Don Bonnitcha, a Hunters Hill Sailing Club life member, said any plan to enlarge the marina, or to moor bigger vessels there, would generate a 'completely unacceptable risk to the safety of the many young sailors in small dinghies who learn to sail and race at [the club]. '
The marina's manager, Idy Chan, did not respond to a request for comment. In 2018, she told Good Weekend magazine she had a waiting list of Chinese emigres wanting berths for their smart yachts.