4.5 Birchgrove
Part 4 – Place Specific Controls
Birchgrove is located on the traditional lands of the Wangal. Wangal lands extend approximately from the south side of Darling Harbour, around the Balmain Peninsula including Memel (Goat Island), reaching from Iron Cove toward Parramatta in the west, with the Parramatta River lying where the northern boundary approximately falls.
Wangal Country in Birchgrove is defined by Hawkesbury Sandstone landforms with steep benched ridges, forming the tip of the Balmain peninsula and overlooking Snails Bay. The topography in Birchgrove is rugged, rolling to very steep hills on Hawkesbury Sandstone. Local relief of 40–200 metres and slopes of >25% with >50% rock outcrops. This Country has saltwater that comes from the surrounding Parramatta River and Snails Bay. The original ecological communities present in Birchgrove are predominantly Sydney Coastal Sandstone Foreshores Forest and Sydney Coastal Enriched Sandstone Forest, with a little patch of Grey Mangrove-River Mangrove Forest. This part of Country has been used for fishing, collecting oysters, and cockles and maintained by the Wangal for thousands of generations of people. The suburb name is a reminder of colonial impacts; the Birchgrove name comes from an estate built in 1810 by Lieutenant John Birch. The area has been continuously altered and destroyed by colonisation as it became a hub for the maritime industries.
The Birchgrove area remains an important place for Aboriginal Peoples, providing viewing points which foster connections to Country. In the 2021 Census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics published that 0.3% of the population of Birchgrove identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.
The Birchgrove Distinctive Neighbourhood features a mix of grand waterfront homes and modest inland housing, influenced by the area's steep foreshores, which were unsuitable for commerce. Housing in the south mirrors the middle-class styles near Darling Street. Since the 1860s, waterfront industries like shipbuilding thrived, with Yurulbin Point later converted into Yurulbin Park in 1972.
Today, Birchgrove is a residential area with corner shops, schools, and remnants of maritime industry. Housing diversity has grown since the 1940s to include walk-up flats, converted shops, and townhouses, alongside original Victorian homes with varied setbacks and mature exotic trees. Roads reflect historical development patterns, ranging from narrow laneways to wide streets like Cove Street, with sandstone kerbing and footpaths throughout.
Major parks include Birchgrove Park (5.6 ha) with its iconic oval and Elkington Park (3 ha), home to the Dawn Fraser Baths. Waterfront pocket parks, created on former ferry wharf sites, complement these green spaces.
Architecturally, the area includes Victorian houses with slate or iron roofs, long narrow lots, and multi-unit housing on former industrial sites. Waterfront homes often have multiple levels facing the water, blending contemporary glass designs with traditional Victorian styles and historic cottages. Notable features include terraces on Grove Street and stone workers' cottages on Rowntree Street.
In the south, housing styles are less varied in size, with terraces and freestanding homes featuring two-storey designs, minimal setbacks, open picket fences, mature landscaping, pitched roofs, and materials like brick, timber, and stone.
The desired future character of the Birchgrove Neighbourhood is defined by the successful preservation of its maritime heritage and the protection of its dramatic, sloping topography. By balancing waterfront homes with modest workers' cottages, the area remains a high-amenity residential enclave that celebrates its "layered" history of shipbuilding and industrial activity. The vision is to maintain a diverse maritime-residential neighbourhood where all new development respects the rugged sandstone landscape, protects harbour views, and honours the architectural rhythm of its Victorian streetscapes.
Objectives
To conserve and enhance the established character of the neighbourhood, including heritage conservation areas, and to ensure new development is compatible with existing structures, landscaping, and natural topography.
Controls
Development, including land uses and urban design is to enhance and achieve the desired future character of the neighbourhood while retaining elements that contribute to that character and meeting all relevant DCP requirements.
Maintain the rhythm of the streetscape by conserving regular setbacks, lot sizes, subdivision patterns, and street trees, avoiding driveway crossings, and retaining detached and semi-detached houses with hipped, pitched, or gabled roofs. Follow the natural topography and maintain a single-storey scale on mid-slopes, with a mix of one- and two-storey scales at the top and bottom of slopes. Step waterfront buildings down with the contours to maintain view lines.
Preserve public and private views over Snails Bay and Parramatta River and enhance them where practicable.
Retain the single- and double-storey freestanding forms, styles, and materials characteristic of each street, and maintain consistency where a uniform pattern of architectural style and form exists.
Retain stone buildings, stone walls, stone wall footings, and exposed rock faces throughout the neighbourhood.
Retain former shops and corner shops and reconstruct or restore posted balconies and verandahs over footpaths where they were original features.
Complement existing architectural style, built form, and materials.
Maintain hipped, pitched, or gabled roof forms, and ensure roof designs complement the existing unadorned built form. Use flat roofs only where contemporary architectural style is appropriate and view lines need to be preserved.
Select building materials consistent with the streetscape character, including rendered and painted surfaces, corrugated iron roofing, and timber windows.
Provide low, open picket fences with iron or timber pickets and metal, timber, or stone posts.
Design development that uses laneways so that it does not exceed their capacity, and include works to upgrade laneways to current engineering standards where they provide access.
Retain and encourage street trees on the wider streets.
Preserve conservation values in development visible from the water by:
- a)balancing built form and landscape through side setbacks and landscaping
- b)designing rear elevations to complement the form, character, and scale of the conservation area, with glazing-to-solid ratios sympathetic to surrounding development.
Site specific controls apply to the precinct identified in the following list and Figure 4.5.1 below.
- Wharf Road Precinct applies to the land marked as 'A'
The Sydney Harbour Foreshores and Waterways Area Development Control Plan 2005 (SHDCP) applies to all development within the Foreshores and Waterways Area identified in the State Environmental Planning Policy (Biodiversity and Conservation) 2021, which replaced the former Sydney Regional Environmental Plan (Sydney Harbour Catchment) 2005. The SHDCP provides additional controls to those in this DCP and mainly relates to the waterway and adjoining land shown on the maps in the plan. Examples of development covered include boatsheds, jetties, pontoons, swimming pools and other structures on or near the water.
Objectives
To retain and complement the Wharf Road's built form, as a series of detached buildings, respecting their scale, architecture style, and siting in relation to the escarpment.
To retain and enhance Wharf Road's topography and landscape features, including the escarpment, exposed rock, significant trees, and sandstone elements.
To maintain and improve public and private views to and from the water.
To minimise the visual impact of parking on streetscape, heritage values, view corridors, and landscaping.
Controls
Landscaping
Conserve established landscapes that enhance the street's character and identity.
Maintain the natural shape and overall form of the escarpment as it presents to both the water and the street.
Protect the escarpment by prohibiting any further excavation or filling, ensuring its natural integrity is maintained.
Preserve all natural rock edges in their original, intact condition.
Retain all significant cut rock faces as valued features of the landscape.
Additions
Ensure additions complement the existing buildings by:
- a)using pitched roofs rather than flat roofs, except in circumstances where flat roofs are used to minimise the visibility of additions from the public domain
- b)using wings that are smaller scale than the original building
- c)minimising the scale of additions when viewed from both the water and the street through articulated forms, level changes, and other design consistent with the existing streetscape character
- d)limiting roof dormers where they are appropriate to the historic character
- e)conserving existing materials, such as slate and iron. Where replacement is necessary, use similar material rather than modern alternatives
Outbuildings
New or replacement boatsheds and waterside structures are to:
- a)not exceed one-third of the site frontage in width
- b)maintain a compatible style, proportion and built form with the main building on the site
- c)avoid dominating the view from the water or compromise the open landscaped edge to Snails Bay
- d)replace early structures where they existed on the lot
Note: Additional controls for boatsheds and waterside structures are contained in the Sydney Harbour Foreshores and Waterways Area Development Control Plan 2005 (SHDCP), which applies to development within the Foreshores and Waterways Area identified in the State Environmental Planning Policy (Biodiversity and Conservation) 2021. Applicants are to refer to SHDCP for additional requirements including limits on height, width, and permitted use.
Outbuildings (other than boatsheds) on the waterside are to:
- a)Have a plan area of 18sqm or less
- b)Be single storey
- c)Exclude bathrooms
- d)Use predominantly lightweight construction
- e)Include a roof with open sides
- f)Have a side height of no more than 2.7m above existing ground levels
- g)Have a width of no more than one third of the water frontage
Subdivision
Subdivided lots are to include a:
- a)Dwelling façade as the primary street frontage, not a garage.
- b)Minimum side setback of 1.5 metres to retain and enhance views to the water.
Waterfront gardens are to remain continuous and open, without fences or changes in garden treatment that disrupt existing garden settings.
Subdivision of buildings are to result in consistent design treatment across all sections, including façade design, colour, roof materials, and overall built form.
Fences
Limit fence solidity to a maximum of 50%, even when replacing existing solid fences.
Construct waterfront fences as open-railed designs using either metal palisade or timber.
Use new materials that match the local sandstone in texture and colour.
Views
Preserve and reinstate existing side setbacks to maintain view corridors to and from the water and use open-railed fencing, gates and structures to preserve, reinstate or create views.
Access, traffic management and parking
Parking and garaging provision are not to detract from the presentation of houses or their landscape setting or obstruct views.
Development at the rear of properties where houses front Ballast Point Road and back on to Wharf Road is to:
- a)Use new materials that are compatible with local sandstone in texture and colour including vehicular crossings constructed in washed concrete to reduce brightness
- b)Limit vehicular access and garaging to a maximum of half the site frontage
This section contains objectives and controls that apply to the Heritage Conservation Areas listed below and shown in Figure 4.5.2.
- Birchgrove and Ballast Point Heritage Conservation Area apply to the land listed as C30
The objectives and controls for the following Heritage Conservation Areas are found elsewhere in this DCP:
- Iron Cove HCA (C26) – Part 4.19 Rozelle Neighbourhood
- Town of Waterview Estate HCA (C31) – Part 4.3 Balmain Neighbourhood
This Heritage Conservation Area is part of a group that collectively illustrates the character of Sydney's early suburbs and suburban growth, particularly between 1871 and 1891, with pockets of infill development continuing up to the late 1930s (before World War II). It retains evidence of Birchgrove and Ballast Point's evolution as marine suburbs and maritime industrial areas from the 1870s–1920s, along with other industries established before 1941. The area demonstrates the strong historical and physical relationship between landform, road layout, housing, and industry, shaped by its harbour setting.
Key Features:
- Evidence of layered development: marine suburbs and maritime industries from the 1870s–1920s, with later industrial activity before 1941.
- Strong relationship between landform, road layout, and the siting of early villas and industries to maximise the marine location.
- Close physical relationship between industry and housing, including both middle-class homes and workers' cottages, typical of nineteenth-century cities.
- Building materials reflecting Sydney's brick-making history, including plastered brick walls and dry-pressed face bricks (unplastered, unpainted).
- Representation of late nineteenth-century bay reclamation projects characteristic of Sydney Harbour.
- Table 4.5.1 in Appendix A outlines the ranking of those buildings that have been rated in for Birchgrove and Ballast Point Heritage Conservation Area.
Objectives
To facilitate development that is consistent with the statement of significance and controls for Birchgrove and Ballast Point Heritage Conservation Area.
Controls
Note: These controls apply in addition to the general heritage provisions in Section 2.12 of this DCP. Applicants are to address both the general heritage controls and the locality-specific controls below.
Retain the following elements that define the heritage significance:
- a)All pre-1941 buildings
- b)Sandstone features such as cottages, villas, wharves/slipways
- c)Public views between buildings, especially towards the harbour
- d)Open, undeveloped spaces between the waterfront and marine villas
Encourage the removal of the following structures:
- a)Garage at 5 Wharf Road
- b)Boatshed at 13A Wharf Road
- c)Additions for flat conversion at 23 Wharf Road
- d)Front fences at 25, 27, 29, 35, 37 and 43 Wharf Road
- e)Solid wall at 29A Wharf Road
- f)Later additions including infilling of verandahs at 39 Wharf Road
- g)Garage and concrete parking area at 41 Wharf Road