Letters
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West Byron – is the Byron Shire at tipping point? The advertisement in The Echo 12/07/17 regarding the Villa World ‘Harvest Estate’ development contained an error in its assessment of the traffic numbers. Byron Residents’ Group (BRG) apologises for the mistake and retracts that information wholeheartedly. Whilst BRG always endeavours to be accurate in everything we publish. On this occasion, dealing with the multiple and complex reports associated with the DA, we incorrectly analysed the traffic data. BRG still believes the traffic movements alleged for West Byron are greatly underestimated but the figures in the advertisement were incorrect. We apologise for the error and urge you to read the traffic assessment provided by the proponent on the council website and also uploaded on the BRG website. Cate Coorey Byron Residents’ Group
Q It promises to be a glorious winter day. Whales are passing the Cape; there’s a light southerly wind, you’re planning on a walk, surf, visit to the farmers market. Hold on! You’d better leave home before 7.30am
to miss the Ewingsdale Road traffic and hope there’s a team of parking fairies at The Pass to magically deliver a parking space. If you’re a surfer, a onewave ticket dispenser (like at the Woolies deli), might come in handy too. And yet there are plans afoot to take us to tipping point – in the form of West Byron, the largest development in Byron Bay’s history. The DA for Stage 1, ‘Harvest Estate’, a 290-lot development by Gold Coast developer Villa World, is currently being considered by the Joint Regional Planning Panel (JRPP). In relatively recent times, Byron Bay has been renowned for both the natural beauty of the landscape and the fact that the town is not over-developed. Residents and visitors have enjoyed spending their leisure time in nature – surfing, swimming, walking and valuing the natural beauty of the town. So, given the current (off season) challenges to enjoying our natural amenities and the numerous environmental challenges faced, we’d be stark raving mad to bring 200, let alone 2,000 more people into the equation. The local Arakwal people
continued from page 11 not recovered. These costs are, of course, in addition to the administrative burden borne by Byron Shire ratepayers in having this case and numerous other Hunter development applications considered (and mostly rejected) by Council’s staff and the council, itself, in general meetings. In his current attempt to
have a Council decision reversed the ratepayers are, once again, forced to shoulder the burden (the administrative costs and not inconsiderable fees of Marsdens, the council’s legal team) in order to protect the integrity of the decisionmaking process against the ravages of this litigant. In the words attributed to mayor Simon Richardson
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have always understood that they have a deep responsibility to nurture country and their cultural and ecological values, sustained for at least 22,000 years before the effects of colonisation/invasion drastically changed their way of life forever. I think we’d all be wise to learn from the Arakwal people’s respect for mother nature and become custodians of the place many of us now call home. Thankfully, all nine of our elected councillors voted to oppose the current Villa World Byron DA at an extraordinary meeting held last Thursday and six of them are willing to address the JRPP. Let’s hope the panel addresses the issues fairly and with respect for the natural environment. Kristen Monty Ewingsdale To the General Manager, Byron Shire Council: I wish to strongly support the unanimous decision by the councillors of Byron Shire to oppose the West Byron development proposed by Villa World Pty Ltd. Byron Bay is a charming coastal town providing one of
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in your recent issue of The Echo – ‘Obviously, Council has a responsibility to ensure it can recover legal costs from vexatious lawsuits; however, Council has, in the past, waived costs from legal proceedings brought about by community organisations’. Graham Mathews Myocum Q The Butler Street fiasco court case was an error. The development application (DA) for Butler Street never was required to go through the whole lengthy cost process because the council made a very big mistake. Local Environmental Plan (LEP) infrastructure over-rides any need for community discussion as long as the council thinks it’s important and this law has been in place since 2008. This means that the council spent some $500–600,000 of our money going to court when it never needed to. This was missed by Council and only discovered three weeks before the court case. The Butler Street community group spent $100,000 on defending their appeal when the conclusion was already decided by the LEP infrastructure law. If this was not missed by the council all these funds
Australia’s most sought after holiday destinations. It has limited infrastructure to cope with the millions of tourists it receives each year. Perhaps the minister has not personally viewed the road into Byron Bay as it is already at capacity, frequently experiencing gridlock.The truck movements alone required to provide fill for this development pose an enormous problem on many levels. Does the planning minister know how many movements along our congested road will be required? How does the minister plan to manage the damage to the road itself and the interruption to the traffic flow? How will the minister manage the ramifications of disturbance to the acid sulfate soil on this site? How does the minister consider managing the leaching of this fill into the wetlands? The RMS has estimated the traffic movements per day on this road after this development is completed is enormous. The controversial Byron bypass will not be adequate. Can you please inform the community how this will be managed before the would not have been spent. All the time and effort both sides put in was not necessary as the new law meant they could just do it without talking to the community. This is a question of judgment as a group of professionals. Every other council in NSW has been using this LEP for their developments. If they misunderstand a DA for $20 plus million, what about all their other decisions? This means that any road in the Shire can be upgraded to any level without community consultation. David Frappell Byron Bay
My favourite pothole I am never disappointed every time I come to Belongil Beach for holidays. My favourite pothole has not only been there to greet me over the past 12 years, but it has grown in length, width and depth. Upon my arrival last weekend it was full of water and deep enough for a small child to drown in. Last year I had the pleasure of meeting the mayor, Cr Simon Richardson, during his visit to the office of the Mornington Peninsula Shire in Victoria. In front of
development commences. In summary there are so many unresolved problems with this development that not only all councillors oppose it, but the vast majority of Byron Shire community residents oppose it and recognise the entire West Byron site is not an appropriate location for a housing development. Ruth Winton-Brown Possum Creek Q It was gratifying to see that the forces of united integrity were operative at the extraordinary Council meeting addressing the West Byron development. However, the statements from surrounding farms and tenants continue to offer a microview of the problems that Byron Council and the community face should this ad hoc development be approved. Overflow of waters continues on the farms, and has done so for many years, jeopardising business and landcare. To date, nothing satisfactory has been done to remediate the concern. Given that the West Byron proposed development is in an area that is flood prone, below sea level and an acid sulfate hot spot, the ordinary person cannot
my fellow councillors he assured me ‘something’ would be done about my pothole. I now read with interest the report ‘Potholed and falling apart’ (Letters July 5). The CEO describes the method of selecting upgrades as being a ‘sophisticated strategic asset management approach which analyses and prioritises works based on their condition’. So if my pothole doesn’t qualify, what does? And where has the annual roads expenditure gone – an impressive increase from $4m to $16m from 2012 to 2016. Certainly not on my favourite pothole. Tim Wood QC Mornington Peninsula
Respect Cr Michael Lyon calls for ‘respect’ (Letters, July 5). Seriously? Respect has to be earned! Roger Seccombe Bangalow
Living on floodplains It’s good to see that we can save lots of ratepayers’ and taxpayers’ money by not proceeding with the proposed floodplain management study – Jim Mangleson and Jillian Spring have all the answers already (Letters, July 12). No need for careful ex-
help but have concerns for the safety of all species, including the home buyer. Huge questions reside in the yet-to-be presented policies governing water flow, risk and remediation, against the back-drop of climate change. The thought of cars driving along Ewingsdale Road during flash or general flooding is made more dangerous due to the proposed high walls to be built along the road that will create flood entrapment issues. It is well known that NSW state government altered environmental zoning to accommodate this proposed development. It is acknowledged the public no longer have the assurance of Environmental Impact Studies (EIS), Social Impact Studies (SIS) and Flora and Fauna studies. The lack of guiding principles hinders the work of councillors. This is an issue that the council must challenge with the corporate state NSW government. Indeed, the community has every right to do the same. The Byron Shire communities pay the wages of these representatives; they have the right to be fully informed. Jo Faith Newtown amination using an expensive computer model of the catchment and floodplain – Jim and Jillian have already solved all the problems. Seriously though, the last floodplain management study took ten years and more than 500 computer runs, and none of the engineering solutions Jim and Jillian propose were found to be effective enough to be worthwhile. For example, a 200m-wide eroding flood outlet north of South Golden Beach in the 1987 flood would have reduced flood levels at South Golden Beach by 19mm and by 4mm at New Brighton. The current computer model more accurately represents the floodplain in that area, and will almost certainly produce different figures, but they won’t be different enough to show a flood outlet as a practical mitigation option. Jim and Jillian both seem to think that human interference on the floodplain has made flooding worse, but there is no evidence that that is the case. Some things have certainly raised flood levels, such as filling at North Ocean Shores and the South Golden Beach levee, but other things have continued on page 14
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo