Plans for 2000 new homes, an industrial estate and a commercial business park on the former Hydro smelter site at Kurri Kurri, have been hailed as an economic saving grace for the town as well as Cessnock and Maitland.
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Developers Jeff McCloy and John Stevens have teamed up to take over the redevelopment of the 2000-hectare site which will be created into a new suburb called Loxford Waters.
Cessnock Councillor, former Kurri Business Chamber President and smelter employee, Rod Doherty, was ecstatic after hearing the news.
"This is fantastic for the Hunter region, Cessnock and Maitland LGAs and in particular the Kurri Kurri business community," Mr Doherty said.
"We can look forward to a more prosperous future in the area.
"When the industrial land is ready for sale I can assume with confidence that the area will employ more people than when the plant was operating."
As Kurri Business Chamber president and now as an ordinary citizen and former employee, Mr Doherty has been a member of the Hydro Community Reference Group (CRG) committee since its inception.
"I worked there (at the smelter) for 18 years with more than 10 years as their community relations officer," he said.
"I was extremely angry with the way in which the Kurri Smelter was treated by government with their power contract, the carbon tax and the ultimate closure of the plant and its impact on the wider community.
"When I worked there the workforce was close to 1000 people and we had 1500 contractors registered on our books.
"Many small industries in the Weston Industrial Estate made their living from contracting to the plant.
"The closure of the plant saw many of these businesses close and thus increase the level of unemployment in the district.
"Of the 450 people who were made redundant at closure at least 50 per cent never gained future employment."
Mr Doherty said the impact of the area's unemployment is documented in the Australian Bureau of Statistics Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA).
The plan to develop the smelter site has been under way since it ceased operations in 2012 and shut permanently in May 2014.
With direct access to the nearby Hunter Expressway - which opened two months after the smelter shut - re-use of the site is viewed as imperative by planners if Kurri is to recover some of the economic momentum it lost along with the hundreds of jobs.
Although the exact details will not be finalised until further along the approvals process, the basic plan is to use the former smelter footprint for two industrial parks, with a business park on the other side of the Hunter Expressway, next to the Hart Road overpass and site entry.
The new owners hope to build more than 2000 homes, with access to the new Loxford Waters suburb from the Gillieston Heights end of the site, with a first entry off Cessnock Road.
They said high-voltage power infrastructure installed with the smelter makes the industrial land ideal to include power generation, either for a solar farm or a gas peaking plant.
Documents show a series of seven residential areas, running in a south-west to north-east direction along the old South Maitland railway line.
Mr McCloy said the project was the biggest of his career - as did Mr Stevens, whose Central Coast company, the Stevens Group, has become a major player in the Hunter, with residential projects like The Vintage at Rothbury.
