The New South Wales Gov­ern­ment has amend­ed Local Envi­ron­men­tal Plans to replace Busi­ness and Indus­tri­al Zones with new Employ­ment Zones’. 

The changes have been a long time in the mak­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly devel­oped under the for­mer Min­is­ter for Plan­ning back in May of 2021, the reforms fol­low the Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Com­mis­sion’s 2021 White Paper Reboot­ing the Econ­o­my’ which rec­om­mend­ed ratio­nal­i­sa­tion of exist­ing busi­ness and indus­tri­al zones by reduc­ing the over­all num­ber of these zones and broad­en­ing their per­mis­si­ble activities. 

The inten­tion of the new zones is to pro­mote flex­i­bil­i­ty of land use and sup­port pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and jobs growth. They seek to achieve this by pro­vid­ing areas that have a diver­si­ty of retail, busi­ness, office and accom­mo­da­tion uses to increase employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties in acces­si­ble loca­tions. The new zones also aim to pro­vide suit­able areas for indus­tri­al activ­i­ties and will sep­a­rate heavy indus­try from oth­er land uses to min­imise envi­ron­men­tal impacts. 

Busi­ness and Indus­tri­al zones have been replaced with five new employ­ment zones, to be called: 

  • E1 Local Centre
  • E2 Com­mer­cial Centre
  • E3 Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Support
  • E4 Gen­er­al Indus­tri­al; and
  • E5 Heavy Industrial

Three addi­tion­al zones have also been cre­at­ed to accom­mo­date land uses in exist­ing busi­ness and indus­tri­al zones that are not pro­duc­tiv­i­ty related: 

  • MU1 Mixed Use
  • W4 Work­ing Water­front; and
  • SP4 Enter­prise

The amend­ments were made on 16 Decem­ber 2022 but the new zones will not take effect until 26 April 2023

A com­par­i­son table show­ing the exist­ing zones and the new zones can be found here

If you would like to repub­lish this arti­cle, it is gen­er­al­ly approved, but pri­or to doing so please con­tact the Mar­ket­ing team at marketing@​swaab.​com.​au. This arti­cle is not legal advice and the views and com­ments are of a gen­er­al nature only. This arti­cle is not to be relied upon in sub­sti­tu­tion for detailed legal advice.

Publications

Work­place Rela­tion­ships: The Legal Posi­tion (Cold­play Con­cert Edition)

The recent sto­ry of col­leagues (a Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer and Chief Peo­ple Offi­cer (CPO)) whose appar­ent rela­tion­ship was cap­tured on…

Dis­missal for Dissent?

The recent unfair dis­missal deci­sion of the Fair Work Com­mis­sion, Shaun Turn­er v Dare­bin City Coun­cil [2025] FWC 1763, in which Deputy…

Con­struc­tion con­tract time­frames and their inter­ac­tion with the NSW Secu­ri­ty of Pay­ment legislation.

Mark Glynn, Con­struc­tion Part­ner at Swaab con­sid­ers the recent deci­sion of Shar­vain Facades Pty Ltd (Admin­is­tra­tors Appoint­ed) v Roberts Co (NSW)…

In the News

Press Release | New Spe­cial Coun­sel Appoint­ment — Peter Bournas

Peter brings more than 20 years of senior legal and prop­er­ty exper­tise, span­ning pri­vate prac­tice, in-house roles with­in the air­port sec­tor…

Michael Byrnes appeared on Break­fast with Tim Web­ster on 2SM on 23 July 2025 to dis­cuss work­place rela­tion­ships and that Cold­play concert

Michael Byrnes appeared on Break­fast with Tim Web­ster on 2SM on 23 July 2025 to dis­cuss work­place rela­tion­ships and that…

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, Cold­play con­tro­ver­sy expos­es HR vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in lead­er­ship rela­tion­ships”, pub­lished in HR Leader on 23 July 2025

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, ​“Cold­play con­tro­ver­sy expos­es HR vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in lead­er­ship rela­tion­ships”, pub­lished in HR Leader on…

Sign up for our Newsletter

*Mandatory information