A Mullumbimby resident, who say they are longterm and wish to remain anonymous – has raised concerns over plans for the former Mullumbimby Hospital site with regards to potential crime.
Up to 225 dwellings, along with ‘a minimum 20 per cent affordable housing’ is proposed on the flood-free site, located at 1 Azalea Street.
After the hospital’s closure in 2016, the hospital was purchased by Byron Shire Council in 2017 for $1.
It was then discovered that significant remediation works were needed to cap asbestos. Estimates for this cost were pegged around $5m. Former mayor Michael Lyon has pushed for part of the land to be sold to cover the remediation, while community members are pushing for it to be social housing.
Public comment is open until May 6 for the draft Site-Specific Development Control Plan (DCP).
The Draft DCP proposes to deliver ‘strong social and environmental outcomes’.
According to the Former Mullum Hospital Draft DCP, ‘The site will be a living village, home to a diverse, creative and inclusive community – including those who have been priced out of other areas of the Shire. This will be achieved by the provision of a range dwelling types, including affordable housing’.
20% affordable housing
Council’s document says the site will ‘Provide a diversity of housing, including a minimum 20% affordable housing defined as per the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979’.
Not exceed 225 dwellings
Other prescriptive measures in the draft DCP include ‘At least 50% of the dwellings on site are single-room, one or two-bedroom dwellings; The number of dwellings on site does not exceed 225 dwellings; and Where possible and feasible, shared facilities are provided for groups of dwellings’.
The resident told The Echo, ‘Your weekly police wrap published on 17 April 2026 records 66 people charged with 84 criminal offences across the Tweed Byron Police District in a single week. Domestic violence. Drug supply. Break and enter. Firearms. A 22-year-old charged with shoplifting and intimidating a retail worker at a Mullumbimby business, resisting arrest, then kicking and punching police. Published in The Echo. This week. Every week’.
‘Byron Shire Council is proposing to place up to 225 housing dwellings on the most valuable flood-free site in the centre of Mullumbimby, the same town where these incidents are occurring, with no community safety plan and no confirmed services. Since the existing temporary housing program began in December 2022, BOCSAR records violent crime in Mullumbimby at 39.4 per cent above the NSW state average. Drug offences up 25 per cent. Assault up 17 per cent.
‘The Echo prints the consequences every week. The planning decision driving those consequences is being made right now, with a submission deadline of 6 May. That is two issues away.
‘I have lodged a formal 21-page submission with Byron Shire Council documenting all of this from official records. Every figure is sourced from official council documents and independently verifiable. I have also lodged a GIPA request demanding Council disclose the financial terms of a proposed transfer of a site worth between $15 million and $30 million, terms that have never been made public.
‘Is The Echo going to cover the financial accountability and community safety dimensions of this decision before 6 May, or is it only going to cover the perspectives of the advocacy groups aligned with Council that controls this Shire?’
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