Byron Council’s current approach to implementing a Special Entertainment Precinct (SEP) policy in the Byron CBD is set to create a ‘world class battle’ in the Shire, councillors have been told.
The comments were made by community leader and former Citizen of the Year, Chris Hanley, during the public access section of last week’s Council meeting.
Community consultation too late
Later in the meeting councillors voted to set up a community reference group in relation to the SEP.
But this may not appease those Byron Bay locals, including Mr Hanley, who argue that community consultation should have been conducted before Council applied for and accepted state government funding to explore the SEP via an extended trial.
Mr Hanley told the Council that its approach to the policy was ‘heading toward a disaster’.
‘The reason we’re in trouble right now and heading for more trouble is that, to use a medical analogy, we’ve gone straight to the operation without doing a triage,’ Mr Hanley said.
‘You have a triage to find out, before the operation, what it is that’s wrong and what you’re actually going to do. That hasn’t happened.’
‘If the community doesn’t start hearing from councillors and Council – people actually listening to what they’re saying, the community will split and we will do what we don’t do well…
‘We will end up with a world class battle on our hands, and huge public meetings, and the media coming to our area and looking under the bonnet…’
But Byron Mayor Sarah Ndiaye (Greens) and Labor Councillor Asren Pugh strongly disputed Mr Hanley’s comments.
‘Are you aware that we have not decided as a Council to undertake a trial of the Special Entertainment Precinct, and that in fact there are still two votes that are required of Council before a trial would even proceed?’ Cr Pugh asked Mr Hanley.
Mr Hanley responded as follows:
‘We’re probably going to differ on this… when you say that you haven’t proceeded on a trial… you go to your zoning certificates that you’re issuing from your Council at the moment.
‘There’s a box that you’ve gotta tick, it’s a 149 certificate. Go and tell the 620 residences that are in your 30-hectare, 70-acre [SEP precinct] that is 70 times the size of the Enmore SEP, that you haven’t proceeded with a trial…’
When questioned further, Mr Hanley acknowledged that a SEP did have the potential to be beneficial for the Byron CBD, but said that Council’s process had been ‘arse about’.
‘If I was doing this I would have filled a room up, with councillors sitting in the audience, listening to ideas from the most creative people in the community…’ Mr Hanley said.
‘I would have said to the people “right, give us your craziest ideas… let’s reimagine our town and give it what it needs and then I would have got everyone on the same page… and then I would have gone to the state government and said, we’re up for a version of the SEP that’ll rock.’
Chicken or the egg?
But Cr Ndiaye countered that Mr Hanley’s preferred process ignored the realities of how the funding process worked.
‘We don’t get to choose the bucket of money…’ Cr Ndiaye said.
‘We need a bucket of money to start with, and once we have those plans ready, then we go and ask state government and say “we need help with lighting in this corridor, and we have this community document that says what our community wants”.’
She then asserted that Mr Hanley had been talking down the SEP in the community which had created undue concerns about its impact.
‘How many people have you spoken to and really given them a very negative idea about what the SEP could be? Because there’s not one person I’ve spoken to that you haven’t spoken to first,’ Cr Ndiaye said.
Mr Hanley responded as follows:
‘Are you seriously putting that question to me, after you’ve imposed this thing on us and it’s now my fault…? You’ve got to be kidding. The reason I’m so passionate about this, along with the hundreds of people who were at our meeting, is because we think it’s the single dumbest decision, in terms of the way it’s been done, that I’ve seen in 30 years.’
Community reference group
After the conclusion of public access, councillors voted to set up a community reference group to guide the SEP trial, as per a motion put forward by Greens councillor Elia Hauge, and seconded by Cr Ndiaye.
The group, to be made up of a wide range of stakeholders, will provide advice to the Council on desired outcomes and measures of success for the trial, or if an alternative to the trial is more appropriate to achieve the desired outcomes.
Councillors also voted to receive a wide-ranging report from Council staff on the SEP.
This report will clearly set out which licensed venues would be included in the precinct, how the SEP can extend, reduce, or incentivise the extension of trading hours for these venues, and the mechanisms by which the changes made for the SEP trial can be reversed if the trial is not successful.
The report will further explore the Council’s current capacity to address increased safety risks created by the precinct, and whether the Council did its due diligence on the impact of the trial prior to applying for and receiving grant finding for its implementation.
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