THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 32 #36 Wednesday, February 14, 2018
THE
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COUGHING FROM ALL THE SMOKE AND GETTING DIZZY FROM THE MIRRORS SINCE 1986
Respect ma Gobsmacked Elizabeth Affordable implied delegated Greens reply to Swain’s musical housing myth authoritah! – p6 Echo analysis – p7 journey – p9 busting – p19
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Frydenberg ‘talks crap’ on shark numbers survey www.echo.net.au/frydenberg-talkscrap-shark-numbers-survey
Illegal holiday-letting Does Byron deserve better? precedent sought Paul Bibby
A major prosecution against an allegedly unauthorised short-term holiday-letting operation is about to commence in the Land and Environment Court. Byron Shire Council’s legal services co-ordinator, Ralph James, told The Echo that officers had spent months gathering evidence against four separate properties where it is believed unauthorised letting had been taking place. Mr James says the council was now ‘almost ready to go’ and was only waiting on external legal advice about the strength of the evidence, so it could decide which of the four properties to prosecute. ‘We are very close to launching the prosecution,’ Mr James told The Echo. ‘I’m expecting advice any day that it’s ready to go.’ Mr James said that Council had chosen to take one property owner to court rather than handing out fines to multiple property owners because it wanted the court to set a precedent. ‘The value of a precedent case is that the court’s judgment, then it applies to other properties with the same zoning,’ he said. ‘It is also valuable for the message that it sends to the community. It says that if you undertake unauthorised short-term letting this is what you can look forward to.’ Mr James said that if the council won the case, the property owner in question could be fined up to $1 million, as this was the maximum
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penalty that the Land and Environment Court could impose for ‘development without consent’. However, if it lost there would be no penalty and the case would set a precedent that supported the type of short-term letting involved. To ensure the council’s case could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, officers had gone to great lengths to compile the briefs of evidence against the four properties. Evidence gathering included trawling through short-term letting websites such as Airbnb and Stayz and watching suspect properties to see if there were cars with interstate number plates coming in and out. Officers had also investigated unauthorised building work, and followed up complaints from neighbours. However, many neighbours had been unwilling to give formal written statements. ‘You’ve got to be prepared to give evidence in court and that’s where we often fall over,’ Mr James said. ‘I can understand why neighbours are reluctant – they still have to live there. But if they don’t go on the record then we’re trying to run the investigation with one arm tied behind our backs.’
Broader crackdown The case is part of a broader policy targeting short-term letting which the council believes is a significant contributor the region’s housing affordability crisis, because it soaks up housing stock that could continued on page 2
A few locals pictured from a larger turnout at Saturday’s West Byron protest. Photo Jeff Dawson
It is just after 10am on Saturday and around 150 protesters were assembling to make their voices heard to what can only be described as a catastrophe in waiting – the massive West Byron development. A car screeches to a halt on the always busy Ewingsdale Road opposite the Arts and Industry Estate after local journalist-activist Jim Beatson sat down, obstructing traffic. The driver of a shiny, red, dustfree large late-model SUV with Qld number plates begins honking. Then in a fit of rage, the driver jumps out of his expensive spotless car and screams, ‘I’m a local too!’ Beatson asks him to drive around him, which he then does, aggressively. Such a scene sums up how divisive the West Byron project is, and later on protesters gathered on the road to re-
mind motorists what they could expect when the development is approved. A development application (DA) by a group of ‘local’ and Qld developers to plonk a massive high-density suburb on wetlands has been roundly criticised – there are no assurances in the developer’s own traffic report that Ewingsdale Road will not become more congested as a result. Additionally, many key principles of Byron Shire Council’s planning have been ignored, says former mayor and MLC Jan Barham.
State govt intervention Those planning instruments were remarkably over-ridden by the state government in what appears an attempt to give the developers a clear passage to completion. Local MLC Ben Franklin (Na-
tionals), whose government interfered against community wishes, is yet to reply to The Echo’s questions. The two development applications (DAs) on public exhibition for West Byron have been extended by Council until March 30. One DA is from ‘local’ landowners, while the other is from Qld-based corporation Villaworld, whose DA was previously rejected. Submissions on DA 10.2017.661.1 and on the re-exhibited Villaworld DA 10.2017.201.1 need to be made by March 30. Submissions should also be clearly marked with the DA number. Email submission@byron. nsw.gov.au. Petitions against the development are available to download via www.byronresidentsgroup.org for more info.
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