From the protests over the development of Bayside’s Wallum Estate at Brunswick Heads to local housing forums and demands for housing for all, the challenge facing us is difficult. How do we balance human needs and our impact on the environment and other species?
The history of how land has been zoned in NSW has its impact on good planning, especially when zonings were made 40 years or more ago. The Iron Gates development near Evans Head is one example. It has a residential zoning in an environmentally sensitive area that is both fire and flood-prone.
The site was originally zoned for residential development in 1982, a period when there was very little thought put into the broader implications of future impacts. Rather a developer bought a site and recommended it to council or state government for rezoning and it was more likely than not that it would be approved for the requested residential development.
Yet many of these sites have lain either dormant or, as is the case with Iron Gates, have had the local communities fighting against what they perceive as inappropriate development.
Up and down the east coast of Australia, sand mining reshaped the coastline and farming clear-felled many areas. When sites have remained undeveloped or are no longer used for farming they begin to revert to their natural state and become a haven for plants and animals, and also become more valuable for humans to live on.
How do we weigh the values of land for housing and land for the natural environment?
Following the devastating 2022 floods the state government said there would be no more development on floodplains. Yet local communities are feeling betrayed as there are significant development applications (DAs) approved on floodplains that continue to be developed or are now being brought back to life. For example, the DA for land in Tringga Street, Tweed Heads, next to the Cobaki estuary on the Tweed River, was approved in 1996. It has been kept alive with a mixture of amendments to the DA and actions onsite (some as minimal as popping in a surveyor’s peg).
The federal government and the states must come together and look at the carrying capacity of each region in relation to water, infrastructure, fire and flood risk, and look at how the population can be fairly distributed for people and the environment. They need to grow communities in areas that need rejuvenation so that pressure can be taken off overwhelmed coastal communities. They need to look at what creates effective, interconnected communities that also respect the environment.
Aslan Shand, acting editor
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. 
