Residents living in Byron Shire’s three emergency accommodation villages, also known as ‘pod villages’, will be required to pay rent from this week, the NSW Reconstruction Authority (RA) says.
For the past two years, accommodation in the villages has been free, providing much-needed housing for those who lost their homes in the devastating 2022 floods.
Now, this group will be asked to pay a ‘licence fee’ if they want to stay in their pods.
The licence fee will be income tested, and be set at either the average rent for accommodation of a similar type in the area, or at a reduced rate based on an income assessment which will be undertaken by the Community Housing Provider (CHP) managing each village.
The licence fee was announced in September 2024, with fees to commence from the second week of December 2024.
In a statement to The Echo, a spokesperson for the Reconstruction Authority said that the temporary villages had been delivered under Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements with the federal government.
‘These time-limited arrangements come to an end in 2025, and the RA has been working with landowners, councils and other government agencies to explore the potential for ongoing use for some villages, where possible,’ the spokesperson said.
‘This would be dependent on landowner consent, council support and government agreement.’
The Echo has learned that the leases for all three of the Shire’s pod villages have now been extended.
However, the lease for the land on which the Mullumbimby pod village is located has only been extended by the state government until July 7, 2025. It is not known what will happen after that point.
Lease extension
The lease extension for the two Brunswick Heads pod villages has been extended for a longer period.
Byron Shire Council, which is the primary landowner for the Brunswick Heads sites, voted last week to provide ‘in principle support for a one-year lease extension’ for both villages.
That would mean that the leases for the two sites will expire in June 2026, unless further extended.
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