Paul Bibby
Local landowners with unauthorised dwellings on their properties will be given an 18-month amnesty to seek development approval without the threat of being fined, Byron Council has decided.
The measure forms part of a new strategy to deal with the thousands of houses, studios and cabins built without approval across the Shire over the past five decades.
Passed at last week’s planning meeting, the strategy includes the preparation of an unauthorised residential accommodation policy to formalise the planning pathways and consequences for unauthorised dwellings seeking approval retrospectively.
Any unauthorised residential dwelling built after June 18 would be subject to enforcement action.
Greens deputy mayor Sarah Ndiaye said, ‘We have enormous amount of unauthorised dwellings, and we don’t have the capacity to accommodate all the people living in them if we knock down all of those houses’.
‘We have a housing affordability crisis. We have a duty of care and we can’t just throw people out.
‘And we need to provide staff with a process for dealing with these dwellings.
‘At the moment, people are spending a huge amount of time, energy and money to make a property that is illegal, legal. That money goes to planners and lawyers, but it costs our staff time and money and resources with very little in return.’
The meeting heard that Council’s chief legal counsel Ralph James had already drafted a proposed policy which could be ‘resurrected’ relatively easily, subject to the input from councillors.
The new strategy, passed by a vote of eight councillors to one, formed part of the response to a request by a landowner on Yagers Lane, Skinners Shoot for approval of an unauthorised house.
A Council staff report stated that the house, sitting on 4.1 hectares of land zoned RU2, was consistent with the Byron Rural Land Use Strategy. The request for approval was also granted.
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