With the Independent Planning Commission’s (IPC) report on Byron’s holiday letting still sitting on the desk of NSW planning minister Paul Scully (Labor), The Echo asked when residents could expect a decision.
In early May, the IPC’s report was released, which recommended a Shire-wide 60-day annual cap on unhosted holiday letting.
Mr Scully was in Lismore on July 11 as part of a ministerial visit around the flood funding debacle.
‘A couple of weeks ago, we received some initial advice from Byron Shire about what might be able to be done, we’re looking at that at the moment,’ Mr Scully said.
The minister said the recommendation from the IPC for a Shire-wide 60-day annual cap on unhosted holiday letting could ‘run into some issues with respect of having to do large rezoning of areas that already exists.’
Mr Scully said his department also had to contemplate ‘existing use remits on properties.’
The IPC, in hearings earlier this year, quizzed Byron Mayor Michael Lyon on why Council wasn’t prosecuting property owners breaching development consent conditions related to affordable housing in second dwellings being replaced with holiday letting. Council has since announced it is investigating breaches and pursuing legal action where necessary.
Mr Scully said, ‘We’re working through some of those technical issues at the moment, the bottom line is though, in all of these areas, whether it be as a result, or contributed to by short-term rental, by flood, or by anything else, we have some acute housing pressures in the Northern Rivers that we have to deal with.’
