FAQs

A Development Control Plan (DCP) provides detailed planning and design guidelines to support the planning controls in the Shoalhaven Local Environmental Plan 2014. 

The new DCP for Berry will ultimately provide guidance for development applications in the subject area, including, but not limited to, heritage considerations.

Heritage Conservation Areas (HCAs) are a collection of places (e.g. streetscapes) that together possess significance, but individually may not. The implementation of a HCA manages sympathetic change by seeking to protect overall character without overly restricting future development opportunity. Most development within a HCA would require development consent and assessment under clause 5.10 of Shoalhaven Local Environmental Plan 2014. In some circumstances, minor works and/or maintenance to a building or tree in a HCA may be undertaken without development consent. Complying development is restricted in a HCA.

The Coolangatta (Berry) Estate was established by Alexander Berry in 1822 when Governor Brisbane awarded 10,000 acres to Alexander Berry and Edward Wollstonecraft, which later expanded to 40,000 acres, including the area that became the Town of Berry.  

The first settlement at Berry was located on Broughton Creek, and by 1861 had a schoolhouse and postmaster. When Alexander Berry died in 1873, his younger brother David inherited the estate. In 1879, Broughton Creek Village was surveyed and a plan for the town was made on higher ground to the west. David Berry gave land for four churches and a park and land was resumed for a school. In 1883, cousin of David Berry, Dr John Hay, was left in charge of administering the estate after Berry’s death in 1889. The town was renamed Berry at this time. By 1892, most of the vast estate had been broken up and sold. The railway opened in 1893 facilitating the town’s growth. 

The recognition of Berry’s heritage significance currently includes three existing HCAs (Berry Showground, Queen Street, Pulman Street) listed in Shoalhaven Local Environmental Plan 2014. The proposed Princess Street HCA covers an area in Berry not covered by an existing HCA. SLEP 2014 also lists 84 local heritage items situated in the area of Berry, east of the Princess Highway, some of which are within the proposed HCA. Full histories of each of these places is available in the heritage inventory sheets (SHI data sheets) for these items which can be viewed on the NSW Government’s State Heritage Inventory website.