Community, creatives and culture: the transformation of Dairy Road, Fyshwick

Already, Dairy Road in Fyshwick has undergone many changes in recent years with a burgeoning creative scene that has started to rival Braddon and New Acton.

It's still the warehouses, albeit refurbished, that take pride and place at Dairy Road but the site's owner and developer Molonglo also has bigger plans for the stretch of land between the Monaro Highway and the Jerrabomberra Wetlands.

The ACT government is currently seeking public feedback on a proposed draft variation to the territory plan that would allow up to 1300 homes at Dairy Road.

About 2000 residents could live there but residential was just a small part of Molonglo's vision for Dairy Road, director Nikos Kalogeropoulos said.

"Over the next 10 to 15 years Dairy Road will evolve from solely industrial use into a place with retail, light industrial, commercial, residential, public open spaces, creative and cultural places," he said.

"A place that allows for work, recreation and different types of living; engulfed in open spaces, cultural meeting places and programming."

Molonglo has yet to develop a masterplan for development of the Dairy Road site. Mr Kalogeropoulos said an architectural brief would be developed in the coming months.

He said the company hoped to select a masterplan architect by early next year and it could take at least 12 months for the masterplan to be established.

"Approval of the territory plan is not approval to develop, it simply allows us to introduce a wider range of more appropriate uses to Dairy Road, both for our vision but also as a neighbour to the protected Jerrabomberra Wetlands," he said.

"We do not know the full extent of uses we will realise nor where they will go exactly on the site. We want to take time to get this right, probably 12 months or more."

Molonglo would also wait at least five years before it commenced residential development.

"We truly believe the right way to develop a sense of place is to establish the community first," Mr Kalogeropoulos said.

"The makers and creators will be the backbone of Dairy Road. We need to take our time to get this right and nurture it to a point where it is sustainable and evolves organically."

Alongside development, Molonglo has also planned to build a series of experimental buildings and installations.

It is part of a series of a "parasitic" pavilion program. The developer lodged plans for the first pavilion, called LESS, last year.

"The pavilions are public spaces for people to congregate and use in different ways," Mr Kalogeropoulos said.

"There aren't enough creative gathering spaces in our cities generally and we feel it is important to establish these structures early on at Dairy Road."

Molonglo purchased the 14.5-hectare site from the Commonwealth in 2002.

The Canberra-based company also developed New Acton and was the owner-operator of the precinct until last year, when the group sold most of its New Acton assets for more than $250 million.

At the time, Molonglo said one of the main reasons it sold the New Acton site was so the group's attention could turn towards Dairy Road.

Like New Acton, Molonglo also planned to stay on as the operator at Dairy Road.

"Molonglo operates under a model of long-term stewardship which will see the custodianship and responsibility of all public realm rest with Molonglo," Mr Kalogeropoulos said. "This gives us the opportunity to make decisions that other developers might not be able to - decisions that bring benefit over the long-term."