Venues like The Illawarra Hotel will continue to offer outdoor dining after council backflipped on fees. Photo: The Illawarra Hotel.
A collective of Wollongong hospitality and retail businesses which joined forces to revitalise the CBD is celebrating a major advocacy win, with outdoor dining fees being waived for the next three years.
A backflip by Wollongong City Council means venues will be able to continue to offer outdoor dining to patrons without copping the usual hefty fees, until at least 2028.
The fees were originally scrapped in a bid to promote COVID-safe dining alternatives and help cash-strapped venues win back customers. As a result, many Illawarra venues jumped at the opportunity to offer outdoor dining areas, generally on council footpaths and land. However, after a number of years, the fees were set to be reintroduced.
The Illawarra Hotel publican and Keira Collective director Ryan Aitchison said outdoor dining had been a great addition to the city.
“But now of all times, with trade being more challenging than anyone has ever experienced in decades, the imposition of quite a steep rental fee for that bit of outdoor footpath being used just didn’t stack up,” he said.
“A lot of the businesses we spoke to, especially within the Keira Collective, myself included, would’ve had to make the tough call to say, we love it, our customers love it, but it’s a luxury that we can’t afford to pay that amount of rent for.”
Through advocacy and determination, the Keira Collective helped Wollongong people understand that the fees wouldn’t help the council’s bottom line but rather just remove an extra attraction to our region.
Councillors agreed and voted to extend the waiver. Lord Mayor Tania Brown said at the time that outdoor dining was important to the city as it provided vibrancy and activation for all residents to enjoy.
“Even though in their budget they had put in that they would make ‘x’ amount of revenue from outdoor dining, the reality of the situation was that if they did impose the rent charge they were proposing that they would never see any of that money because no-one could afford to pay it,” Ryan said.
“We were stoked to hear that because of that advocacy work, council has extended the rent amnesty.”
The relief comes at a difficult time for the industry, with costs of operating and cost of living creating a challenging environment.
“Costs just started skyrocketing, inflation really took on a life of its own and then interest rates and everything that was attached to finance went up,” Ryan said.
“All of our bills, everything that we had to pay just became astronomical.
Ryan Aitchison said the Illawarra would likely no longer be able to offer outdoor dining if fees were reintroduced. Photo: Keeli Dyson.
“It gets to the point where most businesses need to take a hit on margin now because there’s just no more a customer can afford to pay for a beer or a meal.
“We can’t pass any more of the costs onto customers because we will price ourselves out of the market.”
But through working together, the newly-formed Keira Collective is fighting for businesses and finding ways to bring people back into the area.
The registered member-based group represents businesses in the CBD precinct, in and around Keira Street, including popular venues such as His Boy Elroy, Kneading Ruby, Humber, The Illawarra Hotel, Smash Factor, Roys Restobar, The Living Room and Balinese Spice Magic.
“For a city to really perform well, it needs to be more than the sum of one business, it needs to be an environment that people want to come into. There are some standalone businesses that would be a ‘destination’ but we want the Wollongong CBD to be the destination,” Ryan said.
“And we have the ability to do that by looking at everything we have on offer and making sure that we all back each other and support each other to be able to deliver.”
The Keira Collective’s actions are being guided by a survey of about 500 locals to better understand their attraction or barriers to utilising venues in the area.
And while they are delving into identified issues such as parking, debunking misconceptions with the community will also be a challenge.
“Already with parking we’re having some incredible conversations with Haben [Wollongong Central managers] as well as Wollongong Council because we’ve uncovered that Wollongong doesn’t have a parking problem per se, it has a perception problem,” Ryan said.
“We know that at key hospitality times, especially after five o’clock or on weekends, that there are hundreds of available free parks within a short walk to the majority of hospitality businesses that people don’t know about.”
Now they’re trying to connect with the community as they prepare to push for further improvements.
“First order of business is get to the market and show what the Keira Collective is, who is a part of it and the great hospitality experience already on offer,” Ryan said.
“We want to support growth and we want to support the reinvigoration of the CBD, so let’s work together, whether it be on misconceptions or areas that do need to be improved, help support these government bodies and help market progress in these areas.”
To find out more and to stay up to date about the Keira Collective visit its website or Facebook page.
