Voting on whether to ‘progress’ Byron‘s Special Entertainment Precinct (SEP) by Byron Shire councillors was an indecisive affair – Cr Jack Dods’s arm popped up and down like a jack-in-a-box as he changed his mind repeatedly, eventually voting against the motion he seconded, to ‘pause’ the SEP.
However Mayor Ndiaye’s subsequent motion to ‘progress’ the SEP to gateway determination with the concession of reducing the SEP footprint by one zone won the day (5-4) with Crs Sarah Ndiaye, Jack Dods, Asren Pugh, Janet Swain, and Michelle Lowe in favour and David Warth, Michael Lyon, Elia Hauge and Delta Kay against. 90 per cent of community responses were against the SEP.
Cr Warth had put the motion to pause the SEP and associated documentation ‘to allow councillors and the community to collaboratively develop a clear vision for the Byron Bay Town Centre with respect to entertainment, cultural activation, events, and night-time trading’. The motion also sought ‘to identify funding sources for the programs and initiatives required to support a trial SEP’ before going to gateway determination. However, Mayor Ndiaye then foreshadowed the motion to move the SEP forward, with a change to the size of the SEP, to gateway determination (a state government check that a proposal has merit to proceed) telling the meeting that did not mean the SEP was going to trial.
Confusion appears to have been sown by the Minister for Arts, Transport and the Night-time Economy, John Graham, who invited four community members to a meeting in Sydney to discuss the SEP. At the meeting he apparently suggested that there was an opportunity to ‘pause’ the SEP, along the lines of Cr Warth’s motion.
However, at a second meeting with councillors the morning of the Council meeting the minister appears to have retracted the notion of a ‘pause’, and instead implied to councillors that if they didn’t move forward with the SEP then they would lose opportunities to apply for funding around transport, lighting, infrastructure, etc. that the town needs. It was also made clear by Shannon Burt (Council’s Director Sustainable Development and Economy) at the Council meeting that if Council pause the SEP then they would miss out on the SEP and it could be years before they had the opportunity to reapply. This statement to Council contradicted the understanding of community members at the first meeting of the minister’s original suggestion that they could ‘pause’ the SEP and retain their position in line to move forward should they wished to.
Long-time locals Stephen Eakin, Paul Jones, Chris Hanley, and Rachel Calvert spoke against the SEP during public access and Byron Bay Chamber of Commerce (BBCC) President Matt Williamson spoke in favour.
Failure to recognise community input
Ms Calvert told the meeting that she had originally been excited by the SEP until she understood the details of the proposal. Following ministerial and Council consultation she was again in support until she saw the report to Council.
‘At one of the [consultation] nights Shannon Burt actually said all of the feedback will be taken on board. However, [the report] we’ve been presented with is almost identical to what actually terrified the pants off the community in the first instance,’ she told the meeting.
‘I don’t understand why something so big would be implemented into a small, coastal town that’s full of nature, community, children and schools.’
The legal effect of the legislative and regulatory framework of the SEP, which is a part of the state’s new ‘vibrancy’ laws, did not seem clearly understood by councillors. Cr Asren Pugh stated during the meeting that ‘what we’ve seen in the report is that there is no extra late-night trading after 12 o’clock’ flowing directly from the proposed SEP framework. However, it has since been pointed out by concerned community members that the BSC Precinct Management Plan, clearly states that, ‘extended trading hours are possible for venues deemed dedicated live music venues’ under the Liquor Act and that with recent law changes under the vibrancy reforms, the number of venues able to access these extensions has changed. That is yet to be defined and is likely to increase trading hours.
Paul Jones claimed that the existing mapped sound level profiles for the town were inadequate, and that ‘Council has not yet collected baseline data for peak noise periods’.
‘Before the SEP is implemented, maximum noise levels must be measured during peak periods, existing venues must be brought into compliance, and new venues must be carefully assessed,’ he told The Echo.
90% of responses against SEP
‘Once the SEP is in place, the burden of compliance will rest almost entirely on residents and the longstanding inaudibility standard will no longer apply. Importantly, Council is not required under the SEP to retrofit existing homes to mitigate increased noise intrusion.’
With 90 per cent of community responses against the SEP Tony Stante, who sits on BSC’s Transport and Infrastructure Advisory Committee, told The Echo that, ‘This process has highlighted a deeper challenge – Byron’s longstanding difficulty in scoping, applying for, securing and delivering NSW state funding. We should not need a SEP to fix lighting, safety, security, and streetscape issues that were identified by the state government in its very own [2014] report more than a decade ago.’
During and following the Council meeting Mr Williamson from BBCC took a more positive approach to the SEP saying there were now many common points of consensus over the SEP between different groups.
Cr Warth’s original motion to pause the SEP was defeated by the vote of the motion’s seconder Cr Dods after he originally supported it but then changed his mind, requiring a recount.
Cr Ndiaye’s motion to progress the SEP to gateway determination was then passed five votes to four.
Cr Lowe voted to progress the SEP to gateway determination, but warned that if the state government did not put concrete proposals, and guaranteed funding to implement them, on the table then she would not support a future SEP trial.
Speaking to The Echo following the meeting Mr Williamson said, ‘We believe this decision by Council is an opportunity for our community to find consensus. There is a reality here that while Council has been going through its process there has been a separate set of conversations happening, involving both community and business, and those conversations have been productive.’
‘At the Council meeting I noted that there was way more we agreed on than not. That is a massive positive when you consider where we have come from. We can make the SEP into what we all want, and we can make a positive change to our town. That is the opportunity, and we are open to any and all conversations about that.’
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