BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND The Byron Shire Echo • Volume 37 #37 • February 22, 2023 • www.echo.net.au
IPC hearings on STRA impacts commence
Rainbows ahoy!
Paul Bibby Byron Shire Council’s plan to impose a 90-day cap on un-hosted short-term holiday letting across much of the Shire will be examined by the Independent Planning Commission during a three-day public hearing this week. The three-day hearing, held at the Byron Community Centre from February 21–23, will give stakeholders on both sides of the holiday letting debate the chance to put their cases to the commission. ‘Councils and communities around NSW and Australia are watching this with a lot of interest because the problems in the Byron Shire are now playing out in their towns as well,’ Mayor Michael Lyon said. ‘Like us, they want a measure of control to ensure that the broader housing needs of their communities are met, so that key workers have places to live’. The short-term holiday letting industry says that imposing a 90-day cap would ‘remove the families who stay in holiday homes in the Byron Shire’, thus removing ‘$267 million from the local economy’ and jeopardising ‘1,448 local jobs’. It also asserts that Council has grossly exaggerated the figures in relation to the pervasiveness of short-term holiday letting in the Byron Shire, arguing that just 6.5 per cent of the Shire’s housing stock is short-term holiday letting. Byron Council says these figures are false and a misrepresentation of the facts. Visit www.ipcn.nsw. gov.au for more info.
Heritage House re-opens Saturday ▶ p9
BONUS MAGAZINE!
Brunswick Surf Life Saving Club volunteers dressed up as a collective rainbow last Friday, as part of the Rainbow Beaches celebrations of diversity and inclusion. Held annually and coinciding with Mardi Gras celebrations, Rainbow Beaches was created by Surf Lifesavers to spread the message that everyone is welcome on the beach, regardless of an individual’s background, gender, ability, race, age or sexuality. Photo Jeff ‘The Greater The Storm, The Brighter The Rainbow’ Dawson
Mullum railway corridor plans become slightly more clear Hans Lovejoy More details are emerging around plans to develop Mullum’s disused railway corridor for affordable housing and car parks. As previously reported, the entire railway corridor length in Mullum will become either medium-density ‘affordable housing’ or car parks, under a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) dated 24 November between Council and the state government,
which has a three-year expiry date. The public were not informed of the plans until the MoU was presented as a Council agenda item. The MoU also includes Council’s ‘aspirations’ for access via the rail corridor to its land called Lot 4, enclosed by a bend in the Brunswick River. The MoU refers to the 2019 Mullumbimby Masterplan; its vision for the corridor was a medium-density ‘Urban Village’ and car parks. Issues remain around the potential for
increased flooding in the corridor, how the project will be managed, and whether any housing it creates would be truly ‘affordable’. The MoU retains the existing Apex Park play equipment and car parks, but does not create any new open park space. Mayor Michael Lyon commented on www.echo.net.au that, ‘The Mullumbimby Masterplan took three years to develop and involved extensive consultation. The uses identified in that plan are exactly
in alignment with the MoU. [The] Chamber of Commerce monthly meeting was held last night [Tuesday] and I put this to them and it was unanimously supported as being in alignment with the Masterplan and there was appreciation for Council getting on with the job, indeed it was an expectation’. Despite multiple attempts, The Echo did not receive a comment on the MoU from the Mullumbimby Chamber of Commerce by deadline. ▶ Continued on page 4
Byron’s first radical rag turns 50 ▶ p11
‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest political word ▶ p12
The masters of making marvellous spaces ▶ p23
Byron is a hub of creative business ▶ p24