THE BYRON SHIRE Volume 30 #15 Wednesday, September 23, 2015
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B E AT S A H A R D K I C K T O T H E FA C E
CAB AUDIT
It’s a Council Why doesn’t Home & apocalypse, coal get better Garden – p5 PR? – p8 – p12,13
Gigs to read, Stars! then go out with Lilith to see – p29 – p27
West Byron developer Agnew selling out? Chris Dobney
A major player in the controversial West Byron development appears to be pulling the plug on his holding just days before the council’s Development Control Plan (DCP) for the subdivision is due to go on exhibition. Prominent Sydney CBD property developer Terry Agnew bought a sizeable portion of the project early last year from failed local property company Crighton. If sold, he looks set to make millions of dollars in profit just for sitting on the land for a matter of months. Mr Agnew’s company Tower Holdings has refused to comment on the issue but a sizeable advertisement appeared in last Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald, with a bird’s-eye view of the land for sale, which appears to be his holding.
Online in
netdaily
Bruns memorial trees set for the chop www.echo.net.au/brunswick-headsmemorial-trees-set-for-the-chop/
Nearly $3k raised!
In May this year, Mr Agnew was spruiking the high prices of Byron land and this is echoed in the ad, which reads ‘Byron Bay median house price is now $966,000.’ The ad says the parcel potentially contains allotments for ‘300 – 450 dwellings’.
800 houses max Meanwhile the DCP for the development will go on exhibition early next month, with Byron Shire Council approving some smaller lot sizes, dual-key and co-op developments. But the council has ruled out holiday letting in the new suburb and says that a maximum of 800 blocks will be allowed. Council has come under considerable fire for failing to oppose the development, which was approved by the state government in November last year.
Mullum motorists gave generously to 76 Mullum High HSC students last Wednesday morning as they raised funds for a community defibrillator and the Byron Youth Service. Pictured is a very luminescent school captain Kahn Duffey, with his co-stopping traffic wardens. Congrats to the students for collecting an impressive $2,987 from 7am to 8.30am. Photo Eve Jeffery
Mullum campaign to save hospital land kicks off Luis Feliu
A public meeting launched its campaign last Thursday to rally support for keeping the Mullumbimby Hospital site in community hands. Around 100 locals attended the town’s civic hall for the meeting, organised by the Mullumbimby Hospital Action Group, to hear the various options for the site when the hospital is vacated early next year. Construction of the new Byron Central Hospital is in full swing; it is set to open in March next year, leaving a vacant site and buildings
at Mullumbimby. But locals fear the site could be sold off for private use and the community, which has for around 100 years given much money and fundraised for hospital facilities, will miss out.
Plans to demolish While health authorities say no decision has been made on the future of the site and that the public will be consulted, the proposal to demolish the old hospital building, and newer maternity and accident/emergency wings, has many alarmed. The health department says it
wants to use the money from the sale of the site to pay for the asbestos removal and demolition. But some members of the action group say asbestos contamination is not an issue and the contentious plan is just an excuse to tear it down to make the site more attractive to investors. Others would be happy to see the site eventually used for affordable aged-care housing or a similar facility, perhaps a crisis centre for domestic violence, and some youth or disability services. All options are on the table and the group is urging locals to get
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involved and to sign a petition that will soon circulate. Former carpenter Alan Wilson attended the meeting and told The Echo it would be far cheaper to fix the roof of the accident/emergency building than to ‘knock the whole building down just to remove the asbestos’. Mr Wilson did the carpentry work on the A&E extension to the hospital in 1988 when asbestos was first discovered in the roof of the original hospital building, which was opened up to connect to the A&E wing. ‘The asbestos was fine. It was
sprayed onto the underside of the tin roof as they did to insulate buildings from the heat and cold back then,’ he said.
Cheaper to fix roof ‘It’s contained in the roof with two ceilings below. The first ceiling stopping the asbestos is the original made from plaster of paris, and after the asbestos was discovered, a second false ceiling was put in made from gyprock. ‘It would be far cheaper to fix the roof as is than to knock the continued on page 3
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