Bettina Johnston
Senior Community Engagement Coordinator - City Engagement
Laura Dodds-Hebron
Senior Specialist Planner
Senior Community Engagement Coordinator - City Engagement
Senior Specialist Planner
Our proposed restoration and heritage listing of the Chinatown Ceremonial Gates is part of our wider plan to revitalise the Haymarket and Chinatown area.
We’re also inviting feedback on our proposed concepts to improve Dixon Street public domain.
In March 2020, Council noted businesses in Chinatown had expressed their desire for a formal acknowledgement of the heritage significance of the Chinatown Ceremonial Gates and that a heritage study would consider heritage listing for the gates.A heritage assessment carried out in 2023 provides detailed information on the gates. The report concluded that the Chinatown Ceremonial Gates have local significance for their historic, associative, aesthetic, social, rarity and representative attributes.
We are proposing to amend the Sydney Local Environmental Plan to list the Chinatown Ceremonial Gates as a heritage item, in schedule 5 of the plan.
The planning proposal recommends a curtilage to protect the setting of the gates. The curtilage extends to the north and south of each gate along Dixon Street south and is wholly within the public domain. It does not apply to properties either side of Dixon Street.
The Chinatown Ceremonial Gates were conceived by the Dixon Street Chinese Committee as part of a broader Dixon Street beautification project in the late 1970s. Designed by architect Henry Tsang using traditional Chinese materials and ornamentation, they were completed in 1980 and officially handed over to the City of Sydney by the Dixon Street Chinese Committee.
In 2024, the City of Sydney is planning to restore the gates, including replacing broken tiles and panels and upgrading the lighting.
Consultation closes at 5pm on Wednesday 22 November 2023.
We have a range of ways you can provide your feedback:
You can give your feedback by email to Laura Dodds-Hebron at [email protected] with the subject ‘Chinatown Ceremonial Gates’.
Feedback may be published in publicly available reports at the end of the consultation period. Your name or organisation’s name may appear in these reports with your feedback attributed. If you would like your feedback to be kept confidential, please let us know when making your contribution.