Thank you, Councillors Lyon, Pugh and Coorey for explaining what went wrong with the Wallum development application (DA) process on Facebook.
The community f*cked up because they failed to object to Clarence’s revised DA when it was advertised in The Echo in June 2021 during Covid isolation. It’s the community’s job to remain ever vigilant.
According to Mayor Lyon: ‘We never had a reason as councillors to be proactive regarding the site as we were not the consent authority, nor was there any serious effort or campaign to stop the development at the time there needed to be, despite it being very much on the public record’.
The Bayside development was a very live issue as Codlea’s subdivision (DA 10:2020.24.1) was on exhibition just after the bushfires in February 2020, the month before Covid kicked in.
You didn’t listen
The Foreshore Protection Group sent a ten-page submission to Byron Councillors as did the Brunswick Heads Progress Association (BHPA) covering bulk earthworks (up to 2m of fill required), drainage (running into Simpsons Creek and efficacy of bioretention ponds especially during flooding), road works (only one access road), fire protection (50m buffer zones were recommended by RFA), and the Vegetation Management Plan (we supported the extensive submissions supplied by environmental experts).
We concluded by recommending: ‘Council refuse the DA and request the site and land to the south be acquired as state compensatory wildlife habitat and added to the adjoining Tyagarah Nature Reserve’.
In November 2020 the Foreshore Protection Group put out a community alert about three new DAs on exhibition in Brunswick Heads including the 39-room boarding house in Torakina Road, Bayside adjacent to Codlea’s site, which the community also loudly and vehemently opposed to no avail. Council endorsed the projects in 2020/21.
Mayor Lyon now claims: ‘If councillors had been lobbied, and had the values of the site been brought to our attention at this time, we could have addressed the planning panel, helped others to do so and attempted to prevent the development in line with community expectations’.
Byron Shire Council (BSC) didn’t reject Codlea’s project in 2020, just sought conditions to protect the frogs and improve the drainage. Rehabilitating the site was never recommended in staff reports. It remains uncertain whether Council made any submissions to Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP) or was aware of Clarence’s revised DA prior to consent.
Council dedicated parts of the Wallum site for conservation and public reserves in February 2023 and the mayor quotes Cr Dey who supported the staff recommendation saying, ‘it’s mostly cleared land… and the bushland surrounding the site… will add to the joy of living there’.
The NRPP approved Clarence’s new plan in May 2023 so it’s a done deal. Council’s only official role is to ensure the developers comply with the consent conditions which they signed off on, after four hours of debate at the last Council meeting.
Simon Richardson out to lunch?
Ex-mayor, Simon Richardson is a member of NRPP and is well aware of the community’s passion and energy and determined efforts to save and protect this high value, irreplaceable ecosystem. He didn’t notice the lack of response to the Bayside proposal? He didn’t give the community, the old comrades, the heads up?
Councillor Pugh claims Council has no power to change, improve or reject the consent conditions but had deferred the decision in December to give objectors time to lodge an expensive appeal in the Land and Environment Court which they failed to do. Mayor Lyon agrees the ‘real reason (for the deferral) was to give objectors time to lodge an appeal’.
Cr Balson sat on the fence, declaring she had a conflict of interest because she was friends with the objectors! Cr Sarah Ndiaye was commended for her strong defence of Wallum. Any ‘ad hominen attack on Mayor Lyon was unreasonable’, claims Cr Coorey, though the mayor broke the four-all deadlock with his casting vote.
Councillors failed in their role
At every level the system, the process, has failed the community. Consultation and transparency fell off BSC’s agenda over the last decade and we’re left in the dark. Councillors don’t respond to letters or submissions and don’t appear to read them. Documents provided in 2020 are not recalled in 2021. A major development can slip through and be approved before anyone notices – and Council meekly whines that they can’t do anything, saying it’s your fault for not telling us!
The backlash has been impressive with a factual, convincing ongoing campaign by the Save Wallum crew. Appeals to state and federal environment and planning ministers or the court are the last recourse. Cr Pugh’s motion for Council (and ministers) to negotiate a better outcome from the developer to save the ecosystem is the preferred and most likely outcome. A rich benefactor could buy up the site.
We can look forward to more tears and mayhem with the bulldozers at the gates. Maybe we need to tie those yellow ribbons around the squiggly gums, the koala and black cockatoo food trees, and all those precious plants we want to save.
I ended my alert in 2020 with: ‘Council’s decision to not advertise DAs in The Echo is a travesty. No longer are we informed about what’s happening in the neighbourhood, we have to find out for ourselves’. The BSC DA-tracker is a poor substitute. Only a DA number is provided, without the address or a basic description, it is incredibly difficult and time-consuming to find or view plans when you have to open each document individually. DAs need to be accessible and properly advertised in our local paper and available at Council’s office so the plans get the required scrutiny.
Community consultation has been reduced to a box-ticking exercise and backroom deals remain dodgy. It’s not cutting red tape, it’s destroying our environment.
♦ Michele Grant is a member of the Foreshore Protection Group.
Normal process was followed in granting the DA, and concessions were gained from Clarence Property at the time.
The so called heathland it a human creation, why can’t people understand that?
The claims of the SAVE WALLUM campaign are getting sillier and sillier. I live close to the land and have visited it a couple of times a week for over 20 years.
The land being built on is not ecologically sensitive, you only have to look at historical aerial shots to see that it has been cleared since the 1950s and today google maps shows that the area has perfectly straight boundaries, not something that occurs naturally.
The initial campaign to save the grand old Scribbly gum at the end of Omega had merit but it has got completely out of hand, scrambling all over the tree is not doing it any good.
Now claiming that there are 26 threatened species ( only 23 last week) on this block is ridiculous.
We are asked to believe that none of these species could possibly live next door on the 18 hectares (60%) of Clarence land that is not being developed.
The protesters are not locals they mostly have QLD or other interstate plates, the locals are heartily sick of these illegal campers who are mostly ignorant of where they are and what they’re doing here.
As for the glossy black cockatoos , their food trees are not in danger but just to make sure they are scared away the illegal camp has 8 meter high red flags not 20 meters from where I last saw evidence of feeding activity .
My focus is on getting the truth out there , and on protecting the adjoining land after all the fuss has died down!
Jill- your claims are ridiculous.
There are so many reports from ecologists damning any development on this sensitive wetland it almost beggars belief that the NRPP ignored every historical submission by rubber-stamping this development. You’ve completely missed the point of the objections and furthermore many of the activists are local people (also very polite and careful)- so your claim that they are from QLD and have no idea what’s happening are a flimsy attempt to discredit this action. I also live near this land and have been walking through it for years and can see how fragile and precious it is. Time for you to stop drinking the developer’s kool-aid and wake up to the fact that this is an unfolding ecological disaster
Pretty simple , Our council is no longer representing us , we are no longer advised when DA’s are being proposed in our neighbourhood ,
We need to get rid of all the council , and put someone competent in charge , not just someone who wants to continue Simon’s dodgy legacy .
Our council are so scared of going to court against developers , they are approving EVERYTHING that comes across the desk.
Why am i paying $3300 a year in rates for what is basically a bin collection service ?? Only paid $1500 a year in a good suburb in Sydney.
PLEASE people vote carefully in the next council elections , these mob are useless and incompetent , a deadly combo.
When council stops listening to the community which pays their wages , it it time for them to go !!
‘Vote Harder’ has never won an election. You actually have to run your own people as candidates. The red, blue, and green monkeys you keep getting are all made in the same factory.
Let them go yes, but quite likely the replacements will be for the most part, the same soft headed, gutless sort of people who fold easily, or even worse, just don’t care. Yes some councillors are made of the right stuff but they are always in the minority and there lies the problem
Perhaps stand yourself Andy, and show us how it’s done!
Andy will require both jack boots and body armour. It’s very different on the inside, to what it looks like on the outside.
the fact wallum has rejuvenated without assistance in recent years is solely due to the fact Clarence properties the new owner didnt continue slashing the land which was common practice and continued regularly for several decades- nothing was permitted to grow on the site! it was a denuded dustbowl during the drought in 2019/20 when bush fires were raging. The developers photos used in the DA attests to the dreadful state of the land. Yet now its covered in heathland, rare orchids, sedges and an abundance of native plants with few weeds. it proves if we leave nature alone it will recover without our interference. Many in the save wallum are new to the area but they have the foresight to see the value of this site which is recovering from the man-made abuse and flourishing. To destroy it now and bury it under tonnes of fill is a crime against life – wildlife has a right to exist just as we do!