The future of housing in Lismore and its surrounds is a serious question following the 2022 floods and Housing Justice Lismore is hosting a forum for Lismore Council candidates to talk about their vision of Lismore’s housing future.
Co-hosted by Lismore Reclaim Our Recovery (ROR) the forum will see former Lismore Mayor Jenny Dowel seek answers from future potential Lismore councillors on key housing questions.
‘Housing is a major issue across the Northern Rivers and Lismore,’ ROR spokesperson Miriam Torzill told The Echo.
‘There will be questions from the audience as well as questions that emerged from the Lismore People’s Assembly.
‘Despite housing not completely being in the remit of local government they have important housing policies and environmental plans. What happened in the most recent Lismore revision of these plans was that they did not change anything in respect to flood heights on the floodplain. One councillor stated that they didn’t want to put developers off or limit what they could do on the floodplain.’
The People’s Assembly
Questions from the Lismore People’s Assembly came from their Saturday, August 10 event that brought together around 50 people to discuss the housing crisis and to answer the question: ‘What can this community do to get everyone a home?’
Three key ideas that emerged were around ‘the use of empty buyback houses for housing, regulatory solutions, and community-based cooperative models. For all three there were suggestions for short-term and long-term solutions or actions,’ said Miriam.
Assembly founding member Andrew George said, ‘This assembly, although brief, demonstrated a joyous and community-building democracy process that bypasses vested interests and lobbyists and empowers us to come up with ideas together. Whoever is re-elected we will keep bringing the community together in assemblies because our society faces too many challenges to expect the existing institutions to solve them. It’s up to us. We invite everyone to come along to the next Lismore People’s Assembly.’
Next Assembly
The next Lismore People’s Assembly will take place after the election in around six week’s time.
‘The topic for that assembly will be determined by outreach conversations throughout the area over the following weeks,’ said Miriam and Andrew.
The Lismore People’s Assembly organising group meets weekly on Thursday at 2pm and are looking for more members. Contact [email protected] to get involved.
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. 
