COVID-19
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The City of Sydney waives rent for ECEC services until March 2021 to overcome COVID-19 pressures
Freya Lucas
Sep 24, 2020
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The City of Sydney will provide additional rental support for Accommodation Grant Program tenants and childcare services by waiving all rent until 30 March 2021 as part of a cooperative program with the NSW Government on a vision to create a 24-hour alfresco city that will support Sydney’s recovery from the economic impact of the pandemic.
The City’s community recovery plan focuses on the need to reactivate the city centre and local precincts with outdoor dining and bars, late night trading, live music, and cultural institutions staying open in the evening, and centres on a plan to work with the Government to cut red tape and create a streamlined process that will make it “easier than ever before” for businesses to take up outdoor dining in reclaimed spaces and laneways.Under the new plans, associated outdoor dining fees will also be waived until March 2021, and bring the city closer to the vision of a 24-hour alfresco city which Sydney has been working toward for more than 10 years.
“Over the last decade we have proposed the light rail and helped create a pleasant, people-friendly George Street, we have paved laneways and campaigned for small bars,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said.
“We need to allow and encourage businesses to operate outdoors, and we need to support our creative and cultural life to activate and draw people back to our city, safely. We want to ensure our city businesses survive, and create new opportunities to thrive in the long term,” she added.
The 12-month outdoor dining pilot is set to begin in November and support measures for the small business, community and cultural sector will be extended to 30 March 2021. Measures include:
- waiving fees for Health and Building compliance activities;
- reviewing rents in conjunction with tenants in City premises for those tenants that require support on a case-by-case basis;
- waiving standard contractual terms and return venue booking and banner fees to people and organisations who have booked City of Sydney venues and banners and may then be unable to proceed with their bookings;
- waiving footway dining, market permit and filming fees on the grounds of hardship;
- providing additional rental support for Accommodation Grant Program tenants and childcare services by waiving all rent; and,
- allowing recipients to vary their deliverables under existing grants to enable recipients to retain those funds to support the continuing viability of the City’s cultural and creative community.
The City’s community recovery plan was developed in consultation with the community and makes a commitment to putting the cultural sector at the heart of economic recovery by enabling creatives to reactivate the CBD and precincts and builds on the $72.5 million support package released by the City in April for small businesses, artists and others in the creative and community sectors left devastated by the loss of work due to the coronavirus pandemic.
For more information, please see the City of Sydney website, here.
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