I had the opportunity to speak to the NSW Reconstruction Authority (NSW RA) last month. One of the matters I brought up was the proposed 57 Station Street, Mullumbimby development. It was clear that the only ‘community feedback’ they would be listening to supported housing development on that site.
They recognised the community had identified significant issues and failures with the Landcom development application (DA). They would ‘address’ the fact that a key sewer line on the site had been overlooked. They might consider ‘bulk and scale’, and that closing rear access behind local shops would destroy their businesses – they would look at ways to improve the development. But they would not look at the core issue of ‘do the community want this site developed for housing’.
Neither Byron Shire Council (BSC), nor NSW RA, have any intention of listening to the 97 per cent of community feedback that wants the carpark to remain at that site and do not want it developed as housing. The councillors, all elected saying that we need more housing, will not change their minds.
While it’s a given that we ‘need more cheap housing’ there is a heightened level of debate in the community about how we best support people who need access to housing. For poor people, it can never be cheap enough, but the region also attracts people who want high-quality, innovative, sustainable, and expensive housing.
The two retirement living proposals, next to the Beach Hotel and on Butler Street, won’t support high-care needs to end of life. For that people will need to move to a nursing home. As the NNSW Nurses and Midwives Union have pointed out in a letter on page 13, there are not enough places for people to move to locally if they require that level of support as they age.
Locals are frustrated, because the old Mullumbimby Hospital site that they have been proposing for affordable housing, social housing, and retirement housing would link into the adjacent Coolamon aged care facility.
Yes, it’s a positive that BSC is signing an memorandum of understanding (MOU) (page 11) to develop the hospital site, and other sites around the Shire (including 57 Station Street) for housing, but how does the community get BSC and NSW RA to listen. Listen not to just what they want to listen to but to community concerns and suggestions over where they want housing, carparks, and green spaces (that’s right we shouldn’t just turn every green space into housing and carparks)?
Can the community be trusted to make a good decision, or will the loudest local voices just oppose high-density housing whenever it’s proposed next to them? Does BSC and NSW RA really have to just ignore community views and ‘get it done’? That seems to be the attitude.
The community doesn’t need ‘Greens’ at the next Council elections, nor ‘independent’ councillors like the current group, nor ‘Labor’ people – but people across the Shire who are willing to stand up and have a nuanced conversation about what the community needs, and how the community wants their spaces developed. It needs people willing to get involved, and in two years run on a clear platform for making a difference at a local level for their community.
It is no easy job, there will always be criticism, tough decisions, fraught relationships, endless bureaucratic Council agendas to read and disagreements between Council staff’s suggestions and community wishes. Shaping the community you want is what brought the alternatives out of the hills and into action with the local political group United Shire in the 1980s. The question is, who is willing today to take action in this local community to drive the conversation forward in a way that ensures we have the future community that people still want to be part of?
Aslan Shand, editor
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