The fight to retain the Bangalow Bowling Club as a community hub into the future will take a step forward this week, with Byron Council set to formally apply for the iconic venue to be heritage listed.
The decision to close the club in October last year sent shock waves through the Bangalow community, with many blindsided by the sudden loss of their beloved Bowlo.
Among the key community concerns was the fear that the Bowlo’s owners, Norths Collective, would sell the site to a developer who would tear down the buildings to make way for a commercial or residential development.
Since then, the community has rallied to cause, raising over $100,000 via GoFundMe, establishing a new advisory committee, and negotiating with Norths to become the preferred tenderer to take over.
As part of the preservation effort, Byron Council resolved late last year to examine the possibility of heritage listing the famous site to ensure it remained as a sporting and community hub for the local community.
Such a move would, at the very least, significantly limit the development potential of the site, increasing the likelihood that it would be bought back from Norths by the community rather than being sold to the highest bidder.
Conserving setting
Council staff have made good on the Council resolution over the summer recess, obtaining a heritage assessment from Clarence Heritage and preparing a planning proposal.
The assessment found that the Bowlo could be compared with other venues that had statutory heritage listings, such as the bowling clubs at Willoughby, Kyle Bay, and Mona Vale.
‘It is considered that Bangalow Bowling Club meets several heritage assessment criteria and is potentially eligible to be included on Schedule 5 of Byron LEP 2014 as a heritage item,’ the assessment from Clarence Heritage states.
‘A heritage listing is put in place to ensure that future changes are managed in a sympathetic way to conserve the significance and setting of the place,’ it continued.
‘Heritage listing is not about “no development” but about appropriate development and managing change in a positive manner which retains the assessed values.
‘Any demolition and redevelopment of the Bowling Club would require detailed assessment and careful consideration of the impacts on the assessed significance and may raise issues which are in conflict with the objectives of the heritage conservation clauses.’
A motion coming before this week’s Byron Council meeting proposes that Council proceeds with the planning proposal to list the Bowling Club site as an additional heritage item and then forwards this to the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Industry for a gateway determination.
Pending a positive gateway determination, Council would then undertake public exhibition of the planning proposal before formally adopting it.
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