Could the Byron golf course be relocated to make way for a new housing development on the edge of town?
Last week’s Byron Council meeting heard that the board of the golf course had written to the Council expressing an interest in the picturesque site on Broken Head Road being used in this way.
The matter was raised by Mayor Michael Lyon during a discussion about Council’s new housing options paper.
‘There has been a move from the board of the Byron Bay golf course – to potentially move the golf course to another area and within that area where the course is now, for that to provide housing,’ Cr Lyon said.
‘It’s located in town, it would remove congestion from the Ewingsdale Road corridor [and] it means that people who work in the town can also live in the town.
‘I think that’s an exciting opportunity and I’d also like to see that develop.’
The possibility of new development on the golf course site came as Council formally confirmed its support for the broad strategies contained within its new housing options paper.
Target exceeded
As reported in The Echo, the strategy would, if adopted, see up to 6,695 new homes built in Byron Shire over the next 20 years.
This exceeds the target of 4,522 new homes set by the state government.
Council is intending to achieve this through the combination of infill development (1,840 homes), new land releases (3,470 homes) and developing vacant land that is already zoned for residential (1,385).
With Council confirming its support for this approach, the housing options paper will now go on public exhibition from October 9 to November 6. Four in-person consultation sessions will be held in Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, Brunswick Heads and Bangalow on October 30 and 31. Residents have the chance to view the maps which set out Council’s proposed plans for their town, suburb or village.
During the ongoing debate about housing strategy within Council, it has become clear that it is motivated by an ultimatum from the Labor NSW government that Byron must meet the target of 4,522 new houses or risk being stripped of its planning powers.
‘I know that there are some sections of our community that want to keep Byron as it is, and believe that it’s a special and unique place that shouldn’t be developed,’ Cr Lyon said during last week’s meeting.
‘But that’s not going to fly with the state government.
‘That’s going to see us lose our planning powers, and result in developments that we may not necessarily have any input into, or have any desire to see.’
However, Cr Lyon said that to meet the target, Council needed to identify excess land for development beyond what was required.
‘The Department of Planning target of 4,522 dwellings… is worked out by looking at demographics, expected changes in our population, and details coming from the North Coast Regional Plan,’ Cr Lyon said.
2022 floods not taken into account
‘But what it doesn’t take into account, for example, is the floods or the impacts that’s had on our housing supply. It also doesn’t take into account the recent migration that we’ve had to the region from the cities because of Covid.
‘I think we need to respond on that, we need to identify more housing than what’s been considered.’
Cr Lyon also argued that not everything that was zoned residential ended up being developed. ‘No one is forced, when they’ve got a residential zoning, to develop their properties,’ he said.
‘So I think we need to over identify lands, just as we did with the business and industrial land strategy, somewhat safe in the knowledge that they won’t all be developed.’
In formally confirming its support for the broad strategies contained in the options paper, councillors also agreed to investigate additional land being included in the areas identified for additional development, following requests by owners of these sites. This included land on Buckleys Road Tyagarah, 75 New City Road Mullumbimby, and 64 Corkwood Crescent Suffolk Park.
It also agreed to investigate the possibility of development on all suitable Council-owned land, including land at Vallances Road, Mullumbimby.
While all councillors vote in favour of confirming Council’s support for the broad strategies contained within the options paper, Greens Cr Duncan Dey expressed concerns about the fact that some of the areas identified by the strategy were flood-prone. He also argued that Council should not be ‘cow-towing’ to the State government.
‘We should be telling the state what we want and we should be harnessing the energy of our many thousands of voters to not allow the state government to take away our planning powers,’ Cr Dey said.
‘On the other hand, we should not be going slow in identifying the right places to develop’.
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