A large industrial estate would be built on land opposite the Cavanbah Centre in Byron Bay under a planning proposal coming before Byron Shire Council on Thursday.
Proposed by the developer behind the nearby Harvest housing estate (NSPT Pty Ltd) the so-called ‘Byron Bay Industry Hub’ would be located on the site of the former Sunnybrand poultry processing plant and Ingham at 268 Ewingsdale Road.
The development would see the 18.6-hectare site become home to 24 large industrial lots with an average size of 2,500–3,000 square metres.
The site had previously been earmarked by Council as suitable to help address the shortage of industrial land in the Shire, and the developer says that the hub would generate 802 full-time jobs and $92.1 million in wages annually.
However, much like the Harvest housing development further down Ewingsdale Road, the entire site is flood-prone.
250,000 cubic metres of fill
According to the developer’s own documents, the site would require the importation of 250,000 cubic metres of fill prior to construction.
That is more than triple the amount of fill required to build the entire Harvest housing estate.
Nevertheless, the private consultants hired by the developer to assess the flood impact, BMT Commercial Australia, concluded that the development would ‘not have any significant impact on the Belongil Creek floodplain and will not result in any notable changes to the flood extent in the locality’.
Council staff agreed both with this assessment, and the proponent’s other assessment reports, recommending that councillors green-light the planning proposal when it comes before them this week.
‘Land constraints such as flooding, stormwater, ecological impacts, bushfire risks, land contamination, groundwater conditions and traffic concerns have been addressed to the satisfaction of internal staff,’ staff said in their written report accompanying the application.
Should councillors agree with staff, the developer would be a significant step closer to the central goal of the planning proposal – having the site rezoned from RU2 (rural landscape) to E4 General Industrial.
The proposal would then proceed to the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure for a ‘gateway determination’.
This would then pave the way for a more detailed development application (DA) to be submitted in relation to the site.
However, in addition to this planning process is an ongoing process of negotiation between the developer and the Native Title Holders for the land, the Bundjalung of Byron Bay Aboriginal Corporation (Arakwal).
The staff report notes that ‘negotiation is currently underway with the Arakwal Corporation and NTS Corp to acquire the land’.
‘The Arakwal board met on April 17 to discuss the land. The outcomes of this meeting are under review by the proponent…’ the report states.
From an ecological perspective, the staff report notes that the site is already ‘heavily disturbed’, having been home to the poultry processing facility until 2014, and then other industrial uses including a nursery, timber storage, taxi parking, and a fruit and vegetable packing operation.
Freshwater wetlands
However, there are freshwater wetlands to the south of the site which staff say must be protected in any future development.
This includes avoiding any impact on protected wetlands and any significant impacts or changes to the hydrology regimes both inside and outside the development footprint.
It is not clear how these conservation aims will be achieved, given the 250,000 cubic metres of fill that would need to be imported onto the site prior to construction.
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