Building on a sand spit

Susan Skyvington, Member of Mullum RAG (Residents Advocacy Group)

“The Belongil – what a spectacular place to live!” one thought on checking out a move to Byron 25 years ago.

Hardly any houses, you had the pick of blocks to buy at Belongil.   Except that…it was a frontal dune and Byron Council zoning regulations, adopted in 1988 after serious erosion events, clearly stated that any dwelling built at Belongil must be a demountable able to be removed ‘’on the back of a truck”.   I took this law seriously and found a place high up on Paterson Street to buy.   Did those who have subsequently built large luxury houses on the Belongil foreshore choose to ignore the law?

The fact that a frontal dune must be structure-free was established science long before this: you cannot build houses, and especially not rock walls, on the fragile dune because the natural movement of sand will prevail and constantly shift its location.  And it will erode!  Twenty years earlier I was co-founder of Capricorn Coast Conservation Council, involved with monitoring coastal development including protecting the iconic sand dunes on Fraser Island.  Even in the dark days of Bjelke-Peterson’s Queensland in 1971-73 we knew this scientific fact.

Less ignorant were we than today’s majority bloc of Byron Shire Councillors (Ibrahim, Cubis, Hunter, Wanchap, Woods) who voted last week for the building of a rock wall to proceed on the Belongil sand-spit.  Cr Ibrahim said it is to protect the houses existing before 1988.  As I recall, there were only about two houses on the Belongil foreshore in 1992.  In 2010 Byron Council CZMP advocated planned retreat of existing structures.  But the current pro-development councillors choose to wipe out proper safe planning processes that have been progressively put in place over 22 years: solid grounded planning thrown out, for houses unwisely built on sand!