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 21 #04 TUESDAY, JULY 4, 2006 22,300 copies every week $1 at newsagents only
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Council drops Byron Bay LEP Lesley Patterson Twice in the last three months, the conservative faction in Council has moved to shelve the Byron Bay Local Environment Plan (LEP), the document which maps out the model for future development in the town. At last week’s Byron Shire Council meeting, Cr Bob Tardif succeeded where Cr Ross Tucker had failed to stop work on the Byron Bay planning document in favour of a Shirewide LEP. Greens councillor John Lazarus’s absence from the meeting shifted the balance of power from the progressive to the conservative councillors. Local businessman Ed Ahern addressed the council meeting in favour of Cr Tardif ’s recommendation.
Speaking on behalf of the Byron Business Group, Mr Ahern said, ‘Many of our members are unhappy with the contents of the draft Byron Bay LEP. A vast number of the submissions are in opposition to the LEP’. Council staff have told The Echo that approximately 800 of the 1100 submissions concern holiday letting. ‘Our group proposes to move forward rather than enter into dispute with Council regarding whether the plan was wrong or right. Businesses in Byron Bay want to be involved with planning for Byron Bay. Planning needs to be Shirewide,’ Mr Ahern said. Cr Tardif described the Byron Bay LEP as ‘a plan-
ning nightmare’ and a ‘lawyers’ picnic’, saying he was concerned that definitions used in the document did not match standard definitions proposed by the state government in its new standard LEP template. ‘The definitions are not the difficult issue,’ said Council’s planning director Ray Darney. ‘The difficult issues are those we have been grappling with in the Byron Bay LEP.’ Mr Darney later listed those issues as holiday letting, coastal erosion issues and new environmental protection zones affecting the development density on some parcels of privately owned land. ‘This is a very big decision for Byron Shire Council to take,’ said Cr Peter Westhe-
Small voices of change speak out
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imer during debate. ‘I wonder about the motivation of Cr Tardif. My reason for wanting to see this through is I want to be sure that the submissions and legal advice are going to be taken into consideration. There are three issues that are putting the planning into jeopardy. These involve the biodiversity strategy, coastal erosion and holiday letting.’ Arguing that Council should move to a Shirewide LEP in accordance with the state government’s template within the next three years, Cr Tardif said the work done in the draft LEP for Byron Bay would be taken into account. ‘The Byron Bay LEP process was started in 1998, was not a rushed process and included numerous consultations with people,’ said Mayor Jan Barham. ‘Cr Tardif’s statements need correcting. We are now at the state government’s third revision on the template. We are allowed to have some differences to the template.’ In addition to seeking to impose some regulation on holiday letting, the draft Byron Bay LEP includes measures to protect the area’s continued on page 2
Sculpture takes a walk
John van der Kolk’s quiet Vane, is one of 29 works featuring in the Casuarina Sculpture Walk Project which opened last Saturday. Several local sculptors are among the group of influential artists included in the $1million project. Sharing the top awards announced on Saturday night were: indigenous artist Garth Lena from Fingal with two huge steel and fibreglass figures representing Garth’s father and brothers fishing; Canberra sculptor Tim Wetherill with a welded steel orb representing the sun; and John Van der Kolk’s Vane. The free Casuarina Sculpture Walk is open at the Domain Casuarina Beach Resort boardwalk, off Barclay Drive, Casuarina until July 23. Photo Jeff ‘Quite Vain’ Dawson
Moratorium lifted after nine years The gates holding back a flood of development applications in Byron Bay have been opened following Byron Shire Council’s move last An act of defiance, a preemptive strike for peace and a joyful affirmation of dissent. Independence from week to lift the nine year old America Day drew the crowds on Sunday in a typically colourful and creative Byron Bay demonstration sewerage moratorium. However, it might be more against American foreign policy. ‘The foreign wars into which the US alliance has dragged Australians, of a trickle than a torrent in grind on without any promise or pretense of victory of any kind, let alone one that might bring enduring peace,’ says rally organiser Graeme Dunstan’s Peacebus website. ‘Interesting times and auspicious if light of the depressed state of we seize them. The small voices of change that make themselves heard now will be a major influence in the property and tourism directing and channelling the flood of seekers, reformers and revolutionaries coming after. The mission markets. Council hasn’t been inundated with fresh applicaof Peacebus.com in these time is to give heart to the voices and the culture of dissent and that’s what tions this week according to publicly celebrating Independence from America Day is all about.’ Photo Jane Schneider
planning director Ray Darney, whose staff have only ten development applications on file waiting for the moratorium to be lifted. Contrary to the frequently quoted myth, the moratorium did not bring development in Byron Bay to a grinding halt, but it has undoubtedly slowed it down. Approvals for new homes on existing subdivisions continued throughout the morato-
rium and it’s hard to deny that the town centre has changed dramatically over the past nine years. Many of these developments were approved either with on site sewage arrangements, during 2000 when ‘extra capacity’ was discovered in the plant, or following some heavy number crunching by developers showed that the use of water efficient toilets and continued on page 2