The Hunter Development Corporation confirmed this week it has received a revised planning proposal for Stage 2 of the former BHP steelworks land at Mayfield North — a 380-hectare parcel that represents the largest single urban renewal opportunity in regional New South Wales. The proposal, submitted by site manager GPT Group, seeks to rezone a further 47 hectares for mixed-use development, including light industrial, residential, and a proposed waterfront esplanade running south toward Throsby Creek.
The timing matters. Newcastle is caught between two economic realities right now: the Hunter's coal export volumes through Port of Newcastle are still running at roughly 160 million tonnes a year, but every credible forecast says that figure will fall through the 2030s as global energy markets shift. The steelworks land — vacant since BHP shut the blast furnaces in September 1999 — has long been the symbolic centre of arguments about what comes next for a city built on heavy industry. This week's planning submission forced that argument back into the open.
A Site That Shaped Suburbs
The BHP operation at its peak in the 1970s employed more than 10,000 workers directly and supported tens of thousands more across the Hunter. The plant's footprint stretched from Coghill Street in Mayfield North down to the harbour edge, and the surrounding streets — Tourle Street, Denison Street, the old blast furnace precinct — still carry the industrial geography in their bones. Whole suburbs including Mayfield, Waratah, and Islington were built to house steelworkers and their families.
GPT Group has been managing the site's phased redevelopment since acquiring it in 2001 for $40 million. Stage 1 produced the Honeysuckle waterfront and the Hunter Street retail and dining strip closer to the CBD, a project that has attracted around $2.1 billion in private investment over two decades according to Hunter Development Corporation figures. Stage 2 is a harder sell. The Mayfield North land is contaminated in parts, sits further from the city centre, and lacks the view amenity that made Honeysuckle commercially straightforward.
The Hunter Jobs Alliance, which represents coal and energy workers across the region, lodged a formal submission with the HDC this week arguing the rezoning proposal underweights industrial employment land. The alliance wants at least 60 percent of Stage 2 designated for advanced manufacturing and clean energy industry rather than the residential-led mix GPT has outlined. The University of Newcastle's Faculty of Engineering, based at the Callaghan campus, has separately flagged interest in an applied research precinct on the site if appropriate zoning can be secured.
Heritage and the Numbers That Drive Development
The NSW Heritage Office is also in the picture. Three structures on the Mayfield North site — including the No. 1 blast furnace casing and the original ore-handling gantry — have been nominated for State Heritage Register listing. A decision is expected from the Heritage Council of NSW before the end of September 2026. Any listing would constrain GPT's development envelope and add to remediation costs already estimated at between $180 million and $240 million across the full site.
Residential land values in the surrounding area have moved sharply. Median house prices in Mayfield hit $890,000 in the June 2026 quarter, up from $740,000 two years earlier, according to PropTrack data — even as broader Australian property markets have cooled. Developers are watching the rezoning decision closely because a residential uplift on the waterfront parcels could be worth several hundred million dollars in development rights.
The HDC is running a public exhibition period on the Stage 2 proposal through July and August, with community information sessions scheduled at the Newcastle Museum on Hunter Street on July 16 and at the Islington Community Centre on July 23. Residents, industry bodies, and heritage groups can lodge written submissions until August 29. The HDC has indicated it will report recommendations to the NSW Department of Planning before Christmas, meaning any rezoning decision — and the arguments it will generate about jobs, contamination, heritage, and who the new waterfront is actually built for — will land squarely in the middle of summer.
