Lismore City Council staff say they are happy to investigate the option of a new policy aimed at directing certain developer fees towards publicly owned land restoration projects.
The proposal for a Developer Offsets Policy is targeted at local management of a planning system that can require developers to offset environmental impacts of their projects.
Independent Councillor Big Rob says directing the funds towards council owned or managed Crown lands will help fund volunteer groups with ‘shovel ready’ regeneration plans, decrease impacts on staff time and come at no cost to ratepayers.
His notice of motion on the proposal for this week’s ordinary council meeting refers to upper catchment riparian zones, where he says targeted regeneration could help with ‘some flood mitigation during low and possibly medium flood events’.
‘River health will see significant improvement, and it may also assist with propagation along river paths,’ Cr Rob notes.
Council staff ‘supportive in principle’ of proposal
A published staff response says the scale of the need for offsets should be very low, and generally is.
‘Notwithstanding, staff are supportive in principle of creating a Developer Offsets Policy to assist in readily identifying sites and improving efficiencies and processes,’ their response notes.
‘Staff are happy to provide a preliminary briefing to Councillors, covering the key challenges, opportunities and technical points, prior to commencing the draft Policy – particularly on the elements relating to upper catchment sites and community group involvement.’
Significant staff allocation would be required, they say, mostly from the council’s Environmental Strategies team but with input from workers in Public Open Space, Property Services, Governance and more.
Staff say they could develop the policy ‘inhouse’, but would need to schedule the project around existing projects and timeframes.
Politics of off-setting
The allowance for developers to include biodiversity offsets in plans is often controversial, as in the Byron Shire Council’s approval for the Byron Bay Bypass in a previous term.
In that example, habitat for threatened species the Mitchell’s Rainforest Snail was allowed to be impacted with provisions for protection and conservation elsewhere, including nearby.
The Greens at the time experienced a division between local and state representative views on the offsets, which were nominally out of step with Greens policy.
Lismore City Council staff notes include reference to the Biodiversity Conservation Act, saying any new offsets policy would have to ‘align with the requirement to avoid, minimise and mitigate impacts’.
Councillors are due to meet from 10am Tuesday 12 August, with a full agenda and some attachments available for perusal via the Lismore City Council website.
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