Developers behind two environmentally sensitive residential projects in the Byron Shire are seeking to relax restrictions on cats and dogs, arguing that responsible pet ownership offers a more practical and enforceable way of protecting native wildlife than blanket bans.

The NSW government keeps harping on about the length development applications (DAs) take to be processed by councils, and recently it announced it is removing the DA approval process from councils’ hands

In 2012 the creek that runs through the centre of the proposed Wallum Estate development at Bayside Brunswick was acknowledged by the developers, Codlea Pty Ltd, as a ‘Natural Watercourse under the NSW classification scheme’.

Council’s General Manager, Mark Arnold, and Greens Mayor Sarah Ndiaye, have strongly backed planning staff after claims they inappropriately intervened to assist wealthy developers with their controversial large, exclusive 38 lot greenfield proposal near McAuleys Lane and Mullumbimby Road.

Senior Council planning staff have admitted to providing wealthy developers with an advantage around a contentious large 38-lot proposal near the main road into Mullum from Uncle Toms.

The latest ‘affordable housing’ reforms by the NSW Labor government have been roundly criticised by the peak body representing councils, with Local Government NSW (LGNSW) saying it ‘further erodes council involvement in town planning, giving developers increasingly free rein in both city and country’.

The developer behind plans to build an employment hub in Brunswick Heads has strenuously refuted suggestions that the project is a Trojan horse for residential development.

The landowner of the Waves Hotel, located diagonally opposite from the Byron library, has released plans via their architect for an ‘ultra-luxurious sanctuary’ 76-key hotel, ‘spanning four meticulously curated levels and 1,410 sqm’.

Byron Shire has the highest number of rough sleepers of any local government area in the state, and urgently needs state government support for an assertive homelessness outreach program, Mayor Michael Lyon says.

Following Tweed Shire Council’s decision to reject a development application (DA) for a thirty-eight (38) lot strata subdivision at No. 41 Tweed Coast Road,...