The state Heritage Council has rejected $15.5 million plans for Christ Church Cathedral, ruling that a proposed 30-metre spire and coffee shop would damage the building's historic and aesthetic value.
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The Anglican Diocese of Newcastle has been planning an overhaul, including a cafe, archive and new offices, for at least five years.
But the Heritage Council of NSW's Approvals Committee suggested the diocese and architects EJE go back to the drawing board and noted "significant community opposition" to the project.
"The proposed spire would have a major impact on the aesthetic values of the cathedral," Heritage Council delegate Katrina Stankowski said in a letter to the diocese this month. "The AC recommends that, given the visual impact on the entire city of Newcastle, extensive community consultation is sought on the proposed spire, and any spire would require a separate approval."
The proposed new "Cathedral Centre" includes a single-storey glass pavilion and an underground area to be dug into the site's Church Street frontage.
The Heritage Council said the diocese had to develop a strategy for identifying and managing any penal-era burial remains if it planned to excavate the site.
It also took aim at the "elevation, location, form and size of the coffee shop".
Dean of Newcastle Katherine Bowyer was noncommittal about whether the Heritage Council refusal meant the end of the project.
"We need to listen to what's been said. We need to absorb all of that. We need to engage, obviously, and go from there," she said.
The proposed spire would have a major impact on the aesthetic values of the cathedral.
- Heritage Council Approvals Committee
"We're disappointed because we thought these plans would enable us to engage with the community more in terms of our mission and bringing people to engage with the beautiful building that is the cathedral.
"But it is really important that we listen, so we're reviewing the advice, what they gave in their decision, and we're going to seek to have further discussions."
The cathedral was listed on the State Heritage Register in 2011. It is the largest Anglican cathedral in NSW, and the park in its grounds is one of the earliest European burial grounds in the state.
Architect John Horbury Hunt's original plans included a spire which was never built. The building took almost 100 years of stop-start construction to reach its current form, only to suffer damage 10 years later in the 1989 earthquake.
The diocese withdrew 2015 plans for a new glass wing due to approval delays.
The changes, updated in a master plan lodged with consent authorities last year, would "monetarily assist the cathedral in terms of ongoing operation and maintenance" and better display the cathedral's prized collection of artefacts.
