A DA to expand and change the use of the former Wicked Weasel warehouse and surrounding land south of Byron’s CBD is on public exhibition at Council’s website.
The site is located adjacent to the rail corridor and bypass, and consultants for landowners, 156 Jonson St Pty Ltd, claim that works for DA 2021.348 are estimated at $13.6m and will span approximately 4,000m2.
According to a company extract from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC), directors of 156 Jonson St Pty Ltd are Adrian Critchlow, David Robertson Trewern, Nicholas Charles Riley, Jason Allan Mcmillan, and Lazar Simeonov.
All members reside in Byron Shire, according the ASIC extract.
A Harris Farm supermarket is proposed on ground floor, with co-working office space, and bakery/deli/retail tenancy on the upper mezzanine floor.
The supermarket is proposed to operate from 7am till 10pm daily, and a consultant report in the DA claims, without evidence, that the supermarket will create around 200 local jobs.
Flood prone
Yet the DA admits that a portion of the site falls within land subject to flooding. And like most of low-lying Byron CBD, a management plan for acid sulfate soils is likely to be prepared ‘prior to construction to determine soil treatment specifications’.
Separate carparking for 225 vehicles is proposed on another lot, which was previously reported in The Echo.
A separate request has been lodged with Council for land to be rezoned – it runs along the rail corridor and is proposed to be rezoned from SP2 Infrastructure (Rail Corridor) to SP2 Infrastructure (Carpark).
Private carpark
According to the Statement of Environmental Effects (SEE) within the DA, access to both the ground floor and first floor of the two-storey car park ‘shall be via public road at the southern most end of Jonson Street’.
The SEE claims the carpark will be ‘private’.
‘The most appropriate long-term use and zone for the land is considered to be carparking based on discussions with Council, and upon consideration of the draft Byron Town Centre Plan, which indicates that additional commercial-zoned land is not required in this area’.
The SEE says that the proposed two-storey carpark provides ‘sufficient capacity to well exceed the parking requirements’ and as such, ‘Surplus carparking provisions provided for in the proposed development are intended to be utilised by the developers in a future re-development…’
Six electrical vehicle (EV) charging areas are also proposed.
An aspiration to install 500KW of solar on the roof of the upper level of the carpark is also contained within the SEE.
‘This will generate 810MWh of electricity each year, enough to entirely power 97 houses, and will be sufficient to power all the energy needs of Harris Farm and the co-working space’.
Roof top solar
‘The site will have a 500KWh battery bank that will store enough of this electricity to power the site in the evening and through the night’.
‘Discussions with Council in the preparation of this application resulted in the adoption of environmental zones at the southern end of the subject site. It is intended to develop a “green wedge” on this portion of the site in which ecological restoration efforts and compensatory plantings can occur’.
Council staff concerns raised within the DA include a lack of public art and drainage, to which the applicant replied that a consultant has been engaged to facilitate public art, and that the southern road corridor, not the rail corridor, will be the stormwater discharge location.
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