Tweed Valley Banana
THE TWEED SHIRE Volume 1 #49 Thursday, August 13, 2009 Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 Fax: (02) 6672 4933 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au www.tweedecho.com.au
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Developer ‘wants to privatise beachfront’ Residents in one of the Tweed’s new coastal townships are at loggerheads over a developer’s push to wipe out hundreds of beachfront parking spaces as part of rejigged plans for a supermarket and retail complex. Casuarina estate founder Don O’Rorke has split the community by attempting to waive a condition imposed under a 1998 court agreement requiring a beachfront esplanade to provide visitor parking for more than 300 cars.
Bob Taylor, a member of the association’s executive, says there’s no reason apart from the loss of potential profits that the developer can’t still build his retail centre while retaining car parking paces along the beach. ‘We all want a supermarket but many feel that they don’t want to be raped for the privilege,’ said Mr Taylor, who emphasised he was not speaking on behalf of the association . Another resident, Bob Dagworthy, says the foreshore reserves, vacant building sites and the nar-
‘We are angry that some bureaucrat in Sydney is prepared to put profits before people.’ Tweed Shire Council is insisting the developer stick to the agreed development control plan but some residents fear the government may overrule the council and create the potential for a multi-million dollar windfall for the developer. Mr O’Rorke has the backing of Casuarina Residents Association president Rob Bryant who is telling members their shopping centre won’t go ahead if the developer can’t relocate most of the parking spaces to the site of the proposed Coles supermarket beside the Coast Road. But many longterm residents dispute the claim and say there’s already an urgent need for more beachfront parking to cater for the hundreds of visitors who flock to the estate’s patrolled beaches each weekend.
row streets leading to the beach are already packed with visitors’ cars at weekends, even though it’s still winter. ‘I’ve lived at Bondi where people are parking up to three kilometres away from the beach because there’s not enough public car parking spaces close to the beach,’ he said. ‘If we lose the beachfront spaces visitors will be parking in the streets, at the supermarket car park and along the Coast Road, and it will get worse when Kings Forest comes on line.’ The issue has proved a volatile topic on the association’s agenda for more than a year, triggering several stormy meetings, walkouts and resignations. Earlier this year councillors overruled their planners’ advice and adopted a compromise plan
allowing Mr O’Rorke to build a retail centre much bigger than originally planned and relocate it from the beachfront to the Coast Road. Under the compromise Mr O’Rorke was given a large chunk of council-owned land being used as a natural stormwater swale which residents estimate has a commercial value of at least $25 million. Mr Taylor says the developer stands to benefit from a potential windfall many times that amount if he can convince the government, which is the final consent authority, to waive beachfront parking. Mr Bryant says his association agrees with the plan because it will conserve open space but residents say this appears a hypocritical stand considering the association supported the removal of most of the swale. They say they have finally decided to speak out following a letter from the department of planning’s deputy director general, Richard Pearson, signalling his support for the developer’s plans. ‘We are angry that some bureaucrat in Sydney is prepared to put profits before people and ride roughshod over the wishes of what I would say is a sizeable majority and ignore the needs of people visiting the beach,’ Mr Taylor said. Tweed council’s waterways committee chairman Cr Kevin Skinner predicted an angry backlash from the wider community if
Keen snapper thanks his nana
Cameron Jung sits in a folding chair to promote his self-portrait (foreground), which features in the Olive Cotton portraiture award exhibition opening tomorrow at the Tweed River Art Gallery. Photo Jeff ‘I Have The Angles’ Dawson Roxanne Millar
Never underestimate the power of your nana. That is the warning by amateur photographer Cameron Jung, whose nana took him hostage over dinner to force him to enter a continued on page 2 local photographic competition.
First Home Buyers
And lucky she did. His breathtaking selfportrait shot on Greenmount Beach could win him $10,000 after it was chosen for inclusion in the Olive Cotton portraiture award. The annual photographic competition opens at Tweed River Regional Art Gallery continued on page 2
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