Long-held council dreams of new, affordable housing on public land in the Byron and Tweed Shires are closer to being realised, mayors say, with state and federal government support.
Federal Labor Member for Richmond Justine Elliot last week announced around half a million dollars in federal funds to be split almost evenly between the two local governments towards specific housing projects.
Former state hospital sites feature in possibilities for new housing in both shires, while hopes for a new sustainable housing village near Murwillumbah are renewed.
Up to 200 dwellings ‘ballpark’ goal for old Mullum hospital site
Byron Shire Council plans for redevelopment of the former Mullumbimby Hospital site have already progressed to the point of pending state planning department approval for residential rezoning there.
The council has requested medium-density housing be allowed at the hillside site overlooking the southwestern end of Mullumbimby’s township, as well as an exception to local planning rules to permit heights of 11.5 metres instead of the standard nine across the shire.
Mayor Michael Lyon told Bay FM’s Community Newsroom* last week there were still many issues to be resolved at the site, particularly related to traffic.
He mentioned a ‘ballpark’ figure of between 100-200 dwellings envisioned for the site.
The council needs to recoup $5.5 million spent on remediation after the discovery of asbestos at the site.
The investment is much higher than the initial ‘peppercorn’ price of $1 paid to the state government for the site but Mayor Lyon says it’s still represents good value considering the location and development potential.
Community consultation to date has revealed strong desire to house older, single women, Australia’s fastest-growing cohort of homeless people according to data in recent years.
Community spaces and artist hubs are also in demand.
Mayor keen to get ‘keys turning’ at Mullum hospital housing project in next council term
The mayor used the council’s railway yard housing project as an example of when affordable housing has been stipulated in project design.
In that case, the council ended up agreeing to sell the land to an interested community housing provider when none showed interest in a lease.
It’s unclear at this stage whether the council will be pressured to again sell public land in order to achieve affordable housing goals but the $263,000 in federal funds announced last week is to go towards work for a masterplan and development strategy at the old Mullumbimby hospital site.
Cr Lyon said he’d be ‘very disappointed’ if there wasn’t ‘something delivered in the next term of council where people are turning a key or signing contracts or looking at leases’.
‘That’s ambitious, that’s within the next four years,’ Cr Lyon said.
‘But if we can get the model right, and then we go out and find the money to build it, the grants, the support from state and federal government, in a time when they are providing more and more support, if we can get all of the planning done that first year or so and come up with a good DA, get that through, feasibly I want to say we could be signing a contract for construction planning work within two or three years’.
Wardrop Village plans revived in Tweed Shire
The Tweed Shire Council, meanwhile, is to receive $273,000 for its ‘Tweed Affordable Housing Implementation Policy and Design Guidelines’.
The money is to help fund, ‘in particular,’ Ms Elliot wrote on social media, ‘five design-led case studies interrogating different affordable housing typologies and scales across different settlement locations’.
Tweed Shire Mayor Chris Cherry later listed the former Tweed Hospital site as a housing solution potential to be investigated.
But a vision for a new sustainable housing project three kilometres from Murwillumbah’s town centre in an idyllic rural rolling hills landscape, known as Wardrop Village, is perhaps the most advanced.
The council had spent ‘around $90,000, doing a business case and a concept designed for it,’ Cr Cherry said.
‘It has 50 dwellings, it might be able to get up to 200 dwellings,’ she said.
Former independent Cr Ron Cooper brought the idea of Wardrop Village to the council six years ago, slowly but surely winning council and community support for the project, centred around modular housing, during his term and afterwards.
But Mayor Cherry said the former coalition state government ultimately rejected requests for support, refusing to help fund social housing at the site because it was too far from existing social services.
Cr Cooper’s original vision had included shuttle bus services to Murwillumbah’s Central Business District but the plans stalled.
Things had changed since then, the mayor said, in that the housing crisis had worsened, a regional housing taskforce had recommended investigations of public land for housing, and NSW had a change of government.
Wardrop Village was officially back on the table, she said, although perhaps for worker housing instead of social housing.
*Writer Mia Armitage is also executive producer of Bay FM’s Community Newsroom
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