Christmas is a time for visiting, and boy, did we visit.
Up in humid hills around Nimbin, a few sunsets on a multiple occupancy (MO) near Main Arm, long long lunch/dinner/breakfast at a grass castle at Wilsons Creek, dinner in strata-titled Billen Cliffs, then to a couple of long-established communities a bit south in sandy Clarence country near the coast.
We then went out to west of Kyogle, for an every-year river camp party, then to Tasmania, and visiting some old friends on land-share communities in the cold country hills.
Notably, every one of these houses is stunningly beautiful.
They may have dirt floors, reclaimed window walls, odd stone shapes, skewed atriums, unsquare rooms, experimental dunnies and exposed plumbing, but they ooze character and creativity.
The ceilings (where they exist) eek memories of music played, pots thrown, protests planned, children birthed and friends laid to rest. You can smell the memory of huge home-grown veggie soups, chai tea and the sweet scent of joints once passed. Most of the houses have stood for 20 years plus, the oldest more than 50 years. They sit gently and proudly on the earth and often in it, with flexible boundaries between inside and out, garden and lounge, trees and walls.
Every one was unapproved
And here’s the rub: every one was unapproved. Every one was unapprovable.
Our friends seem to be walking talking contributing criminals. They often sit with neighbouring houses never burdened by subdivision applications. Land that was meant to house just one dwelling hosts many. Yet there they stand, in so much better condition than some soulless project brick box on a checkerboard block. Houses that are loved and that love right back. And they’re much more private and spacious and yet connected to community than some medium-density enclave. They have personality.
So there’s two issues here – planning regulation and building standards. Supposedly, our building codes are there for safety and environmental sustainability, but our hippy friends’ houses are solid and sound.
Mind you, there may be no waste pipe in the centre of the bathroom floor, or regulation door widths or veranda roof heights.
Their steps may (shock horror) have different gaps in the stringers.
House happy and healthy
But they house happy and healthy people enjoying the homes they themselves built (and continue to build) and (as long as they are not in Byron Shire) live free of local government harassment, compliance officers or building inspectors. And when they have kids who can’t, or won’t, leave home, they just throw up a lean-to room or shack until they find their feet. Or chuck a caravan under a tree ’til it rots.
And before you tsk tsk and start quoting the reasons to justify every single one of the millions of regulations being breached by these involved communities, ask yourself this.
Does the single mother with two kids living in her car on Koonyum Range Road, or in a tent at a salubrious Ballina campground, or the involuntary grey nomads priced out of retirement in anything other than their Coaster, or the gutter-dwelling mentally-ill loner, or the couch-surfer going from mattress in the garage to converted shed in the backyard – do any of these people benefit from the so-called safety thereby derived? And what about all those about to be evicted from the flood pods, are they concerned if their potential house complies to the nth degree with building codes and subdivision rules?
I know the arguments against illegal subdivision and non-complying buildings, but surely intentional communities are a wonderful use of clapped-out cattle country and give character to what was previously stale. It is the hippies in them hills that gave this area its alternative community, writers, artists, musicians, poets and muses.
When land was cheap
Yes, yes, yes, I’m harking back to a time where land was cheap and replicated now it would be messy. But chaos has its place in a crisis.
I reckon the building regulations are searching for the perfect in the place of good enough.
There is a human-induced housing crisis unique to Australia, with five of our capital cities in the top ten for price in the world. The pollies won’t cut immigration, or restructure tax, no matter how many times I’ve told them to, so we may have to be innovative with housing regulations and land use.
And that’s why law at SCU is hosting a conference on land sharing and the link is below.
It is free, online or in-person, and the keynote speaker is Labor MP Rose Jackson, the NSW Minister for Housing and the North Coast. After a short dance back in time looking at the range of lasting experiments from the early years, we will explore the present challenges including climate change, natural disaster and the housing shortage, and moving to innovations in land sharing for the future.
It will be a massive brainstorm on land-sharing options, a positive discussion with plenty of room for questions and input.
Join us! And, of course, most of the speakers may well (and probably will) disagree with my provocations on building rules and multiple occupancy.
But that’s what’s great about all universities and every housing debate. Disagreement is essential, good humour a must, and a listening ear changes the world.
Book now: www.scu.edu.au/business-law-and-arts/events/land-sharing-and-the-law.
• David Heilpern is a former magistrate and is now Dean of Law at SCU.
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