The Echo article on 17 June regarding the Oasis ‘retirement lifestyle’ development – with sites on Butler St and Bay St – raises the issue of the abuse of the Housing SEPP (State Environmental Planning Policy).
The SEPP provides important planning concessions to encourage the delivery of genuine seniors housing that meets an identified community need.
Those concessions can include increased density and floor space, more flexible setbacks, modified height and design controls, reduced parking requirements and a streamlined planning pathway.
These provisions should not be used to facilitate a high-density luxury lifestyle development on environmentally constrained land.
Almost the whole site is mapped as High Environmental Value (HEV) vegetation and it is surrounded by koala habitat.
The Oasis development seeks to inflict an inappropriate development on one of the most environmentally constrained sites in Byron Bay – it is in a flood zone and Belongil Creek flows through it.
The site is currently the Glen Villa Caravan Park, which has around 35 small cabins on it, and some camping sites.
Putting 198 apartments on the site is overkill – particularly of the environment.
There is a significant disconnect between the project’s ecological narrative and its actual physical footprint and engineering requirements.
The Butler Street proposal is heavily branding itself as a ‘forest ecosystem’ and ‘living with nature’, yet the development involves an extensive excavation into Class 2 Acid Sulfate soils to create a very large basement car park with 485 parking spaces on site.
The traffic impacts associated with that and the urban intensification adjacent to a sensitive wetland system cannot be allowed.
Another concern is the Bay Street component of this development, which appears to be a vague ‘lifestyle’ adjunct to the Butler Street housing project but the planning relationship between them is not clear.
What is to prevent this part of the development – some kind of wellness centre with a rooftop bar – from being converted in the future into a standalone commercial hospitality or entertainment venue?
These two sites – 500 metres apart – should not be treated as one development. They are different beasts.
I urge you to take a close look at this ‘eco-lifestyle’ development and express your concerns to Council.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
