Aboriginal housing in the Byron Shire looks set to get a significant boost, after the company behind a major development in Brunswick Heads offered to provide five per cent of the residential land on the site for this purpose.
News of the offer was revealed by developer Creative Capital at last week’s Byron Council meeting and accepted, on a provisional basis, by councillors.
The proposed development, known as Gulgan Village, involves rezoning a 37.9ha area of land on The Saddle Road, located between Mullumbimby and Brunswick Heads.
Under the proposal, the greenfield site would be transformed into a housing estate that could provide housing for a population of 600 to 1,000 people.
The Managing Director of Creative Capital, Brandon Saul, formally sought to enter into a voluntary planning agreement (VPA) with Council at last week’s meeting, and this received conditional acceptance from councillors.
Included in the terms of this agreement is an undertaking from Creative Capital that it would provide five per cent of the housing on the site, which would be as much as 20 separate residential lots, to the Bundjalung of Byron Bay (Arakwal) Aboriginal Corporation (BOBBAC) for the purposes of providing housing.
Given that Byron currently has just four houses which are devoted exclusively for the purposes of local mob living on country, this represents a significant increase in the Shire’s aboriginal housing stock.
Councillors voted to ‘recognise’ Creative Capital’s arrangement with BOBBAC that will see a ‘five per cent dedication of housing provided on the Gulgan Village site for housing on country’.
However, further work will be done before this arrangement is legally locked in.
This includes the preparation of an expert report to determine how much affordable housing Creative Capital must provide on the Gulgan Village site, in addition to that which it will provide for Aboriginal housing.
Also, the move is not without controversy.
Process questioned
While there was universal agreement at last week’s meeting was that providing more housing for the local Aboriginal community is a key priority, former mayor Michael Lyon strenuously objected to the process by which this was being achieved in this instance. Cr Lyon said that Council already has a process by which affordable housing contributions on large developments are determined and allocated, known as the Affordable Housing Contributions Scheme (AHCS).
In this instance, he says Creative Capital is seeking to bypass that process, and make an agreement directly with Council.
Creative Captial’s Managing Director, Brandon Saul, said this was because the AHCS was ‘flawed’.
Flawed policy
‘To be frank, I think we can incorporate in our planning agreement something that goes above and beyond that,’ Mr Saul told the meeting.
‘We need to have Arakwal housing on country, we need social housing on country, we need affordable housing in Byron. I think it would be great to incorporate that into a voluntary housing agreement that would go further than an AHCS would.’
But Cr Lyon disagreed.
‘What we’re doing here today, without any consultation with our community, is taking the primary site in the residential land strategy and allocating 50 per cent of the affordable housing component to the Arakwal,’ Cr Lyon said during an impassioned speech.
‘It’s not that I don’t agree with it in principle in terms of Aboriginal people being given housing on country, but for me it’s a bit of a queue jump here.’
‘We haven’t even decided how the scheme’s going to operate. Council hasn’t made the decision yet about how we’re going to allocate this housing or what the criteria will be.
‘I don’t agree with the process.’
Councillor Michelle Lowe, one of two Indigenous members of the Council, said that there were more important considerations at stake than following process.
‘Indigenous people have been thrown under the bus’
‘Obviously process has not been followed, but many times when process has been followed, Arakwal people or Indigenous people have been thrown under the bus,’ Cr Lowe said.
‘What I care about is that there are Arakwal people living on the street in their own town, or can’t live here at all’.
‘I am very willing and happy at this point to say that I don’t care about the process. I care about housing for Arakwal people. I can’t imagine that many people in this community would say no to that.’
Labor councillor, Asren Pugh, said that he supported Creative Capital’s proposal, but that it did not amount to ‘handing over a bunch of land’.
‘This is an opportunity for us to send a message to our community, and to our Arakwal community in particular, that we care about housing Arakwal people on country,’ Cr Pugh said.
‘We start every meeting acknowledging traditional owners, and that means nothing unless we take practical steps to deliver what they’ve asked of us, and that’s very clear – it’s jobs on country and it’s housing on country.’
All councillors except Cr Lyon voted in favour of the motion, paving the way for the Aboringal housing proposal at Gulgan Village to go ahead.
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