THE BYRON SHIRE ECHO Advertising & news enquiries: Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au http://www.echo.net.au VOLUME 20 #41 TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 2006 22,300 copies every week $1 at newsagents only
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Becton’s 800 tourist resort goes on display Lesley Patterson Becton’s revised vision for its North Beach site in Byron Bay has a very Casuarina Beach feel to it. Pressured by Byron Shire Council to disclose plans for the entire site, Becton’s multi volume development application (DA) reveals a 431 bed tourist resort in an architectural style reminiscent of our northern neighbour, Casuarina Beach. The Becton DA is on public exhibition from March 3 to April 13. While you can view the weighty document at Council’s Mullumbimby offices and the Byron Bay library, the issue has been taken out of Council’s hands and it is to the Department of Planning that submissions will be sent and ultimately the decision made. Stage one of the DA confirms what we already knew, that a 117 unit tourist resort complete with a village centre (health spa, resort offices, cafe, bike store etc) is planned
for the central part of the site. Appealing presumably to the community’s desire to reclaim the ‘wholesome’ tourist market, the DA says the resort will be family oriented and contain a mix of hotel units and townhouses. The emphasis though is squarely on townhouses with over 100 two and three bedroom townhouses. What we didn’t know about were the details of stage two, which contains a further 57 two and three bedroom units or an additional 141 bedrooms. To put this in perspective, compare it to the Byron at Byron Resort which when complete will have a total of 90 bedrooms. There is a slight snag for the stage two plans in that the area is constrained by bushfire risk. However, the DA states rather optimistically that Becton doesn’t intend to lodge a DA until ‘the Bushfire Planning Guidelines have been revised
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Students go loco for poco poco
or amended to allow for tourist development’. Talking of amending guidelines, last year Byron Shire Council, in consultation with the community, came up with its own view of the amount and style of development that the Becton site could bear. Called a Development Control Plan or DCP, it stipulated a limit of 250 bedrooms. Stage one exceeds that by about 40 bedrooms, and combined with stage two the resort would contain a total of 431 bedrooms which equates to about 860 people at full capacity. In an amazing coincidence, last week the Minister for Planning (that’s the same guy who will be determining the Becton DA) introduced a bill into parliament which among other things allows him to over turn DCP’s already produced by councils. Beacon’s Dailan Pugh believes this is no coincidence.
Alex McAuley Language students in Year 8 at Mullumbimby High School are enjoying a real treat this semester with the arrival of Indonesian teaching assistant Ayu Kusumastuti from Java. The school was chosen to host Ayu who will help Indonesian teacher continued on page 2 Linda Keyte with the teaching and learning of Indonesian language and culture. Ayu has been working at the Indonesian Australian Language Foundation
Ayu Kusumastuti, pictured above, teaches Mullum High students the poco poco. Photo Jeff ‘Shake It All About’ Dawson
(IALF) in Bali for five years where she teaches English to postgraduate and high school students. She has also lived in Sydney where she completed a postgraduate degree in communications at UTS, so she is familiar with Australian culture. Ayu is thoroughly enjoying the experience of teaching at Mullum High, and has been impressed by the students’
eagerness to learn. She has been surprised, however, by the difference between Indonesian and Australian high school students. ‘I never thought Australian high school students would be so different from Indonesian ones,’ said Ayu. ‘In Indonesia, the children are much more disciplined, so I find it a challenge to keep the continued on page 2
Fine print foul-up for Byron LEP
What we might expect if Becton’s North Beach project goes ahead, pictured above, an artist’s impression of the tourist resort’s ‘village centre’.
Byron Shire Council appears to have shot itself in the foot over the document which dictates future development in Byron Bay and Suffolk Park, the draft LEP (Local Environment Plan). Led by the Holiday Letting Organisation and supported by some business sectors, opposition to the draft LEP has been building over the past few weeks, with calls for an extension to the public exhibition period and
talks of a public hearing. Byron Shire Mayor Jan Barham admitted during last Tuesday’s Council meeting that there are mistakes in the draft document, which is on public exhibition until March 17, and suggested that the LEP be withdrawn from exhibition to correct those errors. The suggestion was later ruled out of order when Council staff pointed out it concerned a resolution currently in force.
Cr Barham told The Echo that she was not aware of the errors when the LEP was exhibited. ‘They might be viewed as inconsequential but include some minor technical changes that may change the intent of the LEP. Some of the mistakes relate to holiday letting, environment protection areas and some issues around density and development potential’. continued on page 2