This afternoon’s Tweed Shire Council meeting will be tackling a number of contentious issues including the development by MAAS at Tringa Street, South Tweed Heads and the onsite building of manufactured homes at 32 Fraser Drive, Tweed Heads South that had previously been refused.
The development at Tringa Street, Tweed Heads is a 27-year-old legacy development that was bought last year by MAAS Group Holdings from Dubbo for $20M+ that sits on the floodplain next to Cobaki Creek, and the Tweed River. The clearing of the site by the developers was brought to TSC attention by locals in March and April this year with issues raised about the legality of the developer’s access, the clearing of vegetation communities listed under Federal and State legislation as Endangered Ecological Communities that were subject of development consent approval conditions, and the impact that developing on this floodplain would have.
At this afternoon’s meeting the developer is seeking an amendment o the development application (DA) for temporary access to the site across council owned land (Lot 1 DP1011625) which staff have supported. They had been granted temporary, ten-week access across this land in 2003 and an extension of the temporary access off Tringa Street for an additional six weeks was refused on 5 May 2004. The new developer went ahead in March this year (20 years after the permission lapsed) and cleared access illegally.
The legal access to the site was approved, as part of the original DA, in 1996 and required the ‘access to the subdivision to be created by the developer by the purchase of part of Council’s Land for dedication as a road. In 2000, the developer purchased land across the southern boundary of Council’s Land, which has been dedicated as road, and named Hakea Drive. However, the road has never been constructed,’ according to the staff report. However, if this access is granted locals are concerned that it is just a step towards the developer seeking to make this the permanent access.
Manufactured homes to be built onsite?
The request to build onsite manufactured houses on Fraser Drive, Tweed Heads has come to council multiple times with councillors refusing ‘consent to allow the manufactured homes for sites 39, 40 and 85 to 96 to be built onsite’. The refusal was based on Section 82 of the Local Government Act 1993 to construct manufactured homes on the site (as opposed to the structures being brought into the site on a truck) that ‘council can only grant a variation if the council is satisfied that the variation is well-grounded.’
Tweed Mayor Chris Cherry pointed out at the time that ‘the definition of being well-founded is “if council is satisfied that no person, or person of interest, will be adversely affected by the variation”.’
As part of this fifth application to build these dwellings onsite, rather than offsite as the regulation rerquires, is a new set of mitigation measures they say they will put in place.
Staff have recommended approval of the onsite construction staging in their report that, ‘The proposal to install temporary acoustic barriers in the north eastern part of the property is considered to result in typical, reasonable construction impacts on other properties.’
Attend the meeting
You can attend today’s TSC meeting in person at the Murwillumbah Council Chambers, 10-14 Tumbulgum Road, Murwillumba from 3.30pm or link in online at: https://www.tweed.nsw.gov.au/. Public access runs prior to the council meeting but is not available online.
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