Plans for a $9 million ‘workers housing development’ at 58-60 Bangalow Road, Byron Bay, have received a mixed response from locals, with some supporting the addition of diverse housing options, while others argue there will be wide-ranging negative impacts for little overall benefit.
Plans for 24 one and two-bedroom units were lodged with Byron Council earlier this month by Propel Investment Management.
Five of the dwellings would be dedicated to affordable housing. Each of these would have two-bedrooms, spread across two storeys.
There would be parking for 30 cars overall, including two accessible spaces and six visitor spaces.
A number of local businesses and organisations expressed support for the project, stating that there was a critical need for diverse and affordable housing in the Bay.
Businesses included Beach Byron Bay, Bay Grocer, the Women’s Village Collective and the Namatjira Haven drug and alcohol healing centre.
‘As a small business owner in the Northern Rivers who employs staff in both the hospitality and retail sectors, we have experienced first-hand over recent years the hardships involved in our staff finding affordable housing that’s of good quality, and enables them to safely and easily get to and from work in this age of increased cost of living,’ one local business owner said.
Other businesses expressed qualified support for the proposal.
The CEO of a local food store chain said in a letter that she supported the project ‘only if the planned dwellings are perpetually affordable, not for the 15 year maximum, as proposed’.
Neighbour concern
A number of neighbours raised concerns about traffic, road safety and parking, the loss of trees involved in the development, the visual impact, and the general issue of over-development.
The development is not currently on public exhibition.
However, the full detail of the application is now available and can be viewed via Council’ DA tracker website by searching the DA number 10.2023.465.1.
Yeah, “affordable”. Snapped up and then rented out for maximum dollars, which does nothing to tackle the real issue. Zzzzz
As someone that works in social housing, I’m happy to inform you that dedicated affordable housing is required to be managed by a registered community housing provider who can only rent the houses to very low, low or moderate income earners, and those residents can not pay any more than 30% of their household income in rent. So, they can not actually be “snapped up and then rented out for maximum dollars”.
In my opinion, we should encourage more of this type of development in Byron, so we can start to deal with the very real housing crises.
Why so little parking allowance? Probably needs parking for closer to 60 vehicles. We know that families won’t be living in these.
Including more than 2 car parks per small unit so close to town doesn’t seem like the most sustainable practice. As a community, shouldn’t we be encouraging alternative more environmentally friendly transport for daily use for housing in town (bikes/e-bikes, car sharing, walking). Personally, I’d like to see developments like this including e-bike racks and charging stations, and I think one car park per one and two bed unit plus visitor parking is more than enough.
Good that someone is actually thinking about the problem rather than just building more luxury homes. Good luck to them.
Great to see! Including a component of dedicated long term affordable housing is what every developer should have to do – then we might actually get somewhere to solving the housing crises.
Yessssssss more developments like this please!