In response to the recent flood meeting held at the Ocean Shores Country Club on Tuesday 10 May, a worrying notion was proposed that seemed to have widespread support.
The hastening of Council’s DA process was presented as a quick fix; Logan being cited as the exemplar with a two-week turnaround.
Let’s think about that.
Logan is a city with a massive financial base, thus enabling many staff to be employed. Michael Lyon pointed out that although Byron Shire Council would like to employ more staff to speed up the process, the housing crisis means there is nowhere for them to live. This problem is prevalent across the region.
The idea of replicating the sad, cookie-cutter, cheap builds characteristic of Logan is not what has driven locals to choose to live here. Lack of variety and imagination would completely destroy the unique appeal of this Shire.
Additionally, reducing the time taken to assess DAs would allow open slather corner-cutting by unscrupulous developers and certifiers, to everyone’s disadvantage.
However, if the fast-track process was limited to the raising of existing dwellings, with no increase in footprint or accommodation density, then the existing character of this locale has a chance of being preserved.
With our pro-development State government, housing will remain a difficult issue to resolve, but blanket fast-tracking is not the solution.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
