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 Available early Tuesday at: http://www.echo.net.au VOLUME 23 #11 TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2008 22,700 copies every week Printed on recycled paper
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Fairies find the new community garden
A Community Garden fairy gets her green thumbs dirty at the opening celebrations on Saturday. The community gardens, at the end of Stuart Street in Mullumbimby, are now officially open and off to a fantastic start with an enthusiastic turnout and sparkling winter weather. Photo by Lou Beaumont.
Affordable housing frustration boils over Michael McDonald One of Byron Shire Council’s longtime members of its affordable housing committee resigned during public access last Thursday as a protest against the delay in getting results for the Shire. At that same meeting Councillors voted 9-0 to exhibit a draft Affordable Housing Strategy. Tina Hadley, a committee member for eight years, told Councillors that ‘not one affordable housing area has been created. There is massive housing stress and it is an escalating problem for our people. ‘Byron Shire Council is one of the largest prohibitive factors to providing affordable housing. I no longer have any faith it can meet the runaway needs of the people.’ Of a contrary view, Council’s consultant on its strategy, Dr Judith Stubbs, said Council had taken a
strong leadership role and joins ten to 15 councils across the state in considering the issue. Byron Shire is one of the least affordable areas in NSW in terms of housing, Dr Stubbs said. ‘It has increased dramatically in the last decade. ‘The Sydney exodus continues displacing local residents. It is exacerbated by the lack of supply caused by holiday letting. ‘Affordable housing is a key question for environmental and social sustainability. Issues of social diversity are critical and reducing the impact of urban development is extremely important.’ The draft housing strategy will be exhibited for at least 42 days and will be accompanied by a program of community consultation ‘so as to minimise the risks associated with community misconceptions about affordable housing’.
The strategy recommends 15 ‘key strategies’, including identifying Council and other public land that can be used in affordable housing partnerships with government, community and private sector partners, and for other special uses including caravan parks and aged accommodation; developing low rise medium density forms of development close to shops and services, dual occupancies and garden flats, caravan parks, aged accommodation and other more innovative forms of development; offering developer incentives in the form of density bonuses in strategically selected precincts close to town centres in exchange for a 50% share of additional profit created dedicated to Council for use as affordable housing. ■ For more on this subject go to the forums section of our website – www.echo.net.au
Seven for mayor, 36 for councillor Michael McDonald Seven hopefuls have put up their hands for the position of mayor of Byron Shire at the council election on September 13, and 36 candidates will run for the position of councillor. Following a referendum at the 2004 election, this year nine councillors in total, including the mayor, will be elected rather than ten. In the order they will appear on the ballot paper, the mayoral candidates are Bob Tardif, Ross Tucker, Tina Petroff, Tony Heeson, John Lazarus, Jan Barham and Jack Sugarman. Tardif, Tucker, Lazarus and Barham are current councillors, with Tardif representing Country Labor and Barham the Greens. Tardif, Tucker, Barham and Sugarman ran for mayor at the 2004 election, respectively scoring 457, 5395, 5270 and 559 primary votes, Barham winning office on preferences. Petroff ran for councillor at the last election, scoring 676 primary votes. From left to right on the ballot paper the council candidate group tickets are: s 'ROUP ! 4HE 'REENS *AN Barham, Simon Richardson, Tom Tabart, Richard Staples, Maggi Luke; s 'ROUP " /UR 3USTAINABLE Future Patrick Morrisey, Heather Harford, Eka Darvill, David Moss; s 'ROUP # "ASIL #AMERON Nadine Hood, Louise Doran, Bill Mackay; s 'ROUP $ *AN -ANGLESON *ACOB Ivey, Arthur Rose, Jim Mangleson, Chris Shevellar; s 'ROUP % #OUNTRY ,ABOR 0ARTY Bob Tardif, Maggie Tardif, Jill Ball, Rosalie Bryant; s 'ROUP & 2OSS 4UCKER 4ONY Heeson, Diane Woods, Ken Barnham; s 'ROUP ' +ARIN +OLBE .OElene Bunt, John McKay, Alan Close;
s 'ROUP ( 3HIRE 7IDE !CTION Group Tina Petroff, Alan Dickens, Rene Thalmann, Denise Stammers; and s 'ROUP ) *OHN ,AZARUS AND Adrian Gattenhof. Only the first two candidates of each group ticket are likely to have a chance to be elected, though The Greens might manage three on Barham’s large preference spill. On past performance and preference indications the possible nine new councillors could be Barham, Richardson, Tabart, Morrisey, Cameron, Jan Mangleson, Bob Tardif,Tucker, and Heeson, though either Lazarus or Petroff could come in ahead of Tardif, given that Labor is on the nose at a state level and Tardif will have lost Greens preferences. Of the mayoral candidates, only Tucker and Barham stand out according to past voting patterns. It looks harder for Barham this year, given that most, if not all, of the other mayoral candidates are likely to direct preferences to Tucker.
Greens bag BU Convenor of the Byron Ballina Greens, John Bailey, speaking on behalf of Greens candidates, has taken aim at business lobby group Byron United over its questionnaire sent to all candidates: ‘In view of the agressive and inaccurate nature of the Byron United campaign to date, we have difficulty in accepting any good motives in this questionnaire. In fact it has all the characteristics of an easily manipulable device to denigrate the candidates they have already targeted. ‘Only the naive or foolish would complete a political survey which does not contain the criteria on which the results are to be evaluated, especially one which contains contentious questions on which the views of BU are well documented.’ continued on page 2