Monday, 19 October saw the Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP) listening to a long list of reasons why the development application (DA) for the carpark at 57 Station Street, Mullumbimby should not be approved.
The community came out in force against the DA with multiple planning and other experts, including David Brown, Ian Pickles, and Karl Allen, speaking to various inadequacies and failures of the current DA along with Greens MP Tamara Smith.
These included the fact that the ratepayers would be footing the bill for any future replacement carpark and public toilet. The most recent iteration of the DA proposes to narrow the exit from the town’s main entrance roundabout to Station Street and do extended roadside landscaping with no community consultation or supporting evidence that it would not impact the existing truck movements. The DA impacts the narrow and congested McGoughans Lane that is also used as an access route to the CBD by a number of people with disabilities. Concerns were raised that the DA did not adhere to Council’s own published flood planning levels for the site and that the DA failed to meet the same standards for the rubbish removal provision required for other similar developments in Mullumbimby such as Chinbible Avenue. There were multiple requests for the NRPP to defer, or to refuse the DA and suggestions that there were better sites that would provide an increased quantity of affordable housing available.
Landcom’s planner, Wes Wilson, seemed to wave the community concerns away telling the NRPP ‘the scheme is compliant, and it’s not correct to say that it isn’t compliant. They may not like the way that the codes have been formulated, but that is the law’.
However, the most surprising reveal was after Mr Wilson had emphasised how closely Landcom had worked with Council staff (though obviously not councillors considering half of them recently attempted to withdraw support for the DA because they felt they had no input into the DA process). Mr Wilson then said the applicant had not been fully briefed by Council on the landowner’s legal requirements in relation to access to the Pink Lotus restaurant for bulk gas deliveries and had believed only pedestrian access, not vehicular access, was required.
Speaking to the NRPP the landowner made it clear that vehicle access and a line of sight was required to deliver gas to the rear of the restaurant, as approved by BSC.
The gas supplier uses a tanker approximately 9.5m long, 2.5m wide and 3.5m high, weighing approximately 17.5 tonnes. According to the supplier, filling requires a clear line of sight from the tanker to the gas cylinder and an unobstructed hose route.
BSC Greens Mayor Sarah Ndiaye, Labor’s Janet Swain, and former BSC councillor Salma Balson spoke in favour of the DA highlighting the need for affordable accommodation in the region.
The NRPP panel is due to hand down its decision within seven days.
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