At our last Byron Council meeting, I proposed reducing the height limit at Wategos from nine metres to eight metres. This is because the steep slopes mean people are building absolute monstrosities that are completely out of scale with the surrounding bushland, beach and lighthouse. I also asked for more work on what we can do to limit the excessive excavation into the hillside. This was an important campaign brought to Council by the Wategos Beach Protection Association which no other councillor had gotten behind. As I said at the time, we are not West Hollywood, and we don’t want to be.
I read with amusement the Echo claiming that this motion was brought by another councillor, Sarah Ndiaye, (Greens). This followed the Echo report just a few weeks earlier, where I had done the work to push the developer at 9 Marvell Street to keep the main part of their building below the 11.5m height limit for the centre of town. No mention, of course, that Sarah Ndiaye, (Greens), had spoken against my changes and preferred the design that completely exceeded the height limits.
I will continue to ensure that Byron remains Byron. To me, there is still the opportunity to control the future of our community, and our shire. We will need to discuss building height as a community when it leads to more housing diversity and increased housing affordability. But I will always fight against more 5-star hotels and millionaire mega-mansions pushing the limits.
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. 
