The future of the landmark Honeysuckle HQ redevelopment remains up in the air more than a year after the Minns government came to power promising minimum levels of affordable housing on public land.
The former Coalition government launched community consultation on the publicly owned "premium" waterfront site almost four years ago in September 2020.
Hunter and Central Coast Development Corporation short-listed three preferred developers in September 2022 and asked for more detailed proposals, but the project stalled when Labor won government in March 2023 and mandated a minimum of 30 per cent social and affordable housing on the site.
Sixteen months later, the community remains in the dark about how the three-hectare project will proceed.
"HCCDC is continuing to work towards a dynamic mixed-use precinct being delivered in Honeysuckle HQ," a corporation spokesperson said on Tuesday.
"We'll provide an update in due course."
The HCCDC website says the corporation is working with three short-listed developers on the project.
Former Property Council Hunter chair Neil Petherbridge said late last year that mandating social housing targets in inner-city development projects was "likely to kill" them.
The Honeysuckle HQ site is the last parcel of public land to be sold as part of the 30-year-old redevelopment of Newcastle's former industrial waterfront.
The site stretches from Cottage Creek to the Wickham marina and includes a one-hectare land parcel on the southern side of Honeysuckle Drive with a height limit of 90 metres.
Most of the land is inside a mine subsidence district once covered by the Newcastle Mines Grouting Fund, which offered developers a guarantee against the unknown cost of filling coalmine voids.
The state government axed the grouting fund last year.
The Urban Development Institute of Australia published research last month suggesting high construction costs had rendered most apartment projects in Newcastle unfeasible except "high-end" units with harbour views.
The most recent government figures show the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie social housing waiting list grew 45 per cent to 3186 in the two years to June 2023.
The median wait time at June 30, 2023, was 22.5 months and the median wait for priority housing was 3.2 months.
Another Honeysuckle project enduring a long delay is the reuse of the former Newcastle Maritime Museum building by Hunter wine maker Hope Estate.
HCCDC granted the company a 50-year lease in July 2020 to operate a restaurant and cellar door at the revamped "A Shed" on the waterfront.
Hope Estate lodged a development application for the restaurant in 2021 and won approval in September last year for modified plans with a cost estimate of $4 million.
The approved plans include a bar, dining area and glass-enclosed deck downstairs and an upstairs bar, steakhouse and open-air deck.
Hope Estate did not respond to requests for comment about progress on the building.
The HCCDC website says construction is expected to start late this year.
