THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 27 #15 Tuesday, September 18, 2012 Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au www.echo.net.au 23,200 copies every week
Inside this week
CAB AUDIT
PAGE 17
13.7 BILLION YEARS IN THE MAKING
Councillors’ four- Green Scene –p18 year vision – p5
Tin Pan Orange Realtor David Gordon interview – p21 profile – p44
Byron Shire Council Notices Page 42
Ensemble Della Mar’s NZ dreaming Draft land use plan by Council draws flak Hans Lovejoy
Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School’s orchestra, The Ensemble Della Mar, are fundraising to tour New Zealand next year and are performing at the Bangalow Markets this Sunday. Photo Eve Jeffery
Councillor line-up announced Luis Feliu
Five new faces make up the new nineseat Byron Shire Council for the next four years, with a much slimmer majority for the progressive-Green bloc which previously dominated. The new council is Simon Richardson (Greens mayor), Diane Woods (Independent), Rose Wanchap (Greens), Sol Ibrahim (Independent), Chris Cubis (Woods’s Independent), Duncan Dey (Greens), Basil Cameron (Our Sustainable Future), Paul Spooner (Real Independents) and Alan Hunter (Woods’s Independent). Cr Richardson was confirmed mayor last week after a close vote with
conservative rival Diane Woods – 7,090 votes – against 6,232 after preferences were distributed. The new faces on council are realtor Rose Wanchap, who was second on Cr Richardson’s Greens ticket, CEO of Northern Rivers Childcare Services Sol Ibrahim, Byron Steel business owner Chris Cubis (the No 2 on Cr Woods’s ticket), Byron Bay Community Centre manager Paul Spooner (Real Independents) and Myocum farmer Alan Hunter (also on Cr Woods’s ticket). A familiar local government face is that of Duncan Dey, who was number three on Cr Richardson’s Greens ticket and served as a councillor before 2008.
Outgoing councillor Tom Tabart, who observed the preference distribution event, said the result meant the Greens-progressives bloc had a majority of one, but mayor Richardson also had the casting vote if the vote was tied. Despite a reciprocal preference deal with Cr Woods, Mr Ibrahim told The Echo that he does not consider himself a conservative ‘within the normal political spectrum.’ ‘I am not a conservative voter in state or federal elections… It is my intention to be a balanced and progressive councillor, sitting firmly in the centre,’ he said. Q Councillors’ vision page 5
It hasn’t even been made public yet, but already the draft Local Environmental Plan (LEP) is under fire from rural landowners concerned that it potentially devalues property, contains conflicting overlaying zonings and would require DAs to be lodged where they weren’t required previously. The issue has been raised before; The Echo’s August 28 edition ran a story, ‘Cr Woods and Barham at odds over LEP’, where Cr Woods called for a review of the draft. ‘The draft LEP has E2 and E3 zonings,’ Cr Woods said, ‘both of which can be applied to rural properties and both of which create significant restrictions for the landholders.’ But then-mayor Jan Barham dismissed the claims, saying, ‘The Native Vegetation Act 2003, which overrides the LEP, allows for farmers to carry out routine agricultural activities.’ Cr Barham added that the formal exhibition process would address any public concerns such as the accuracy of E2 and E3 mapping. Curiously however, Council has published a teaser from the LEP on its website: ‘Land zoning maps’. Although a disclaimer on every page clearly claims the maps are not final, why publish it? Resident Louise Savrda is critical of what she has already seen of Council’s draft LEP. She and her husband Rowan run Claire Valley Farm, a 50-hectare cattle farm in Bangalow’s hinterland. ‘Council staff made zoning decisions based on an aerial photograph of the shire taken in 1991,’ she told The Echo. ‘Things have changed since then. You can’t asses vegetation of significance from an aerial photograph; you have to visit the property to see what’s growing “at ground level”. ‘But no-one from council has walked
the talk – there has been no on-ground assessment or consultation. Bad decisions have been made as a result. ‘What is of real concern to me is that I’ve only found out about this through my neighbour, a fellow farmer. Why hasn’t council contacted me and all other affected residents? If council can send me a rates notice, then surely they can send me a letter about this?’
We all need to be lawyers to understand that? When asked about former mayor Barham’s comments that the Native Vegetation Act 2003 overrides the LEP, Mrs Savrda said, ‘So we all need to be lawyers to understand that?’ ‘We have to sit down and work out which Act takes precedence over another? It should be simple. We are confused and everyone wants do the right thing but most will stop doing continued on page 2
LEP fun facts According to www.planning. nsw.gov.au, ‘Through zoning and development controls, they [LEPs] allow councils and other consent authorities to manage the ways in which land is used.’ But it’s been a rough ride for many local councils over their LEPs. The state government gives councils directives over their LEPs and, through many incarnations of Liberal and Labor, have made amendments that have put pressure on councils to continually conform to their changes. A standardised template for all NSW councils’ LEP’s was introduced in 2006, with the most recent amendment made by the state earlier this year.
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