With the threat of losing their planning powers, councillors scrambled to respond to the NSW Planning Department at Thursday’s Council meeting, approving a template to deliver 5,825 new homes for Byron Shire by 2041.
This exceeds the target set by the planning department of 4,522, and is part of fast-track reforms demanded by the planning department that are linked to Council’s short term rental accommodation (STRA) proposal.
Minister Scully’s delayed decision on the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) report recommendations on STRA appears to hinge on Council demonstrating it can improve housing supply.
Sweeping changes around building regulations, including height increases, higher density and more township infill are pegged to accommodate the targets.
According to the template, a Residential Strategy Refresh 2023 is also planned, with public feedback, adoption and submission to the planning department to be completed within six months.
The reforms would include new permissible ‘housing’ types in residential and business zones, and ‘dual key, multi-generation and eco-village opportunities’.
No ‘affordable’ target
‘1,300 investigation areas’ from the Reconstruction Authority’s Resilient Lands Strategy are also mentioned, without further detail.
It is also unclear what percentage of new homes will be actually ‘affordable’ to essential workers.
During Council debate on Thursday, some councillors questioned the reasoning underpinning threats by Deputy Secretary NSW Planning, Marcus Ray to remove their planning powers. One reason to appoint an independent assessor, according to Ray, was that Council’s development application (DA) processing times ‘are among the slowest in the state’.
Another claim was that Byron Shire was ‘falling well short’ of hitting its housing targets.
Cr Asren Pugh (Labor) said the demands were sending Council down a ‘rabbit hole’, and it was not a major part of the IPC recommendations.
‘It’s almost a side note, which they have grabbed a hold of to have an excuse to say no to STRA’, he said.
Independent councillor, Cate Coorey added that Tweed and Ballina Shires have longer DA approval times than Byron.
Within Council’s adopted motion, Council ‘assures the Department of Planning that Council has always met and will continue to meet or exceed the implied dwelling targets required under the North Coast Regional Plan’.
Local MP, Tamara Smith (Greens) told The Echo she believes the planning minister does not intend to intervene with Council’s planning powers, and supports the planning reforms.
She said, ‘Our citizenry wants us to get on with it and deliver change – something has to give, because quite frankly, I don’t know how we exist in the future as a community in Byron Shire if we don’t deliver housing reform. I believe we are very close to getting a [STRA] cap per the IPC recommendations, and that is my focus’.
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