Byron Shire Council will invite Melinda Pavey, Rob Stokes and other councils to help confront region’s ‘hideous’ housing issue
The staff report on the issue was “probably the most sobering” one councillor had read in his eight years in the jobs.
Byron Shire
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“Words do not build houses; actions do.”
This comment from councillor Paul Spooner came amid yet another discussion of the Byron Shire’s dire housing situation at the council’s planning meeting on Thursday.
Councillors unanimously backed a suite of recommendations put forward by staff in a bid to tackle the issue, including for key workers.
Although Cr Michael Lyon pointed out: “a key worker in a tourist town is practically everyone”.
“It’s your baristas, your waiter, your retail assistants, your cleaners, your teachers,” Cr Lyon said.
“It’s everyone pretty much, except the ones buying in from the city and working from home.”
Councillors unanimously voted to support a range of actions, including inviting the housing and planning ministers to the region to “discuss key worker housing stress”, “visit key council project sites” and “discuss the potential for state government grant funding to support infrastructure delivery needed to facilitate local affordable and diverse housing initiatives already commenced in Byron Shire”.
The council will also seek collaborations with other Northern Rivers councils for a case study and to “identify innovative solutions to regional housing affordability challenges that go beyond the current LGA boundaries”.
During a separate but related discussion, Cr Sarah Ndiaye took issue with the term “housing crisis”, saying this suggests “it’s just hitting its peak and will change and go away”, but she said the housing problem was a “hideous issue”.
Mayor Simon Richardson said “crisis” was an apt term, comparing this issue to a water crisis or the climate crisis.
“They are all long term things,” he said.
“When they become a crisis is when they begin to disintegrate how we live … and there is no guarantee that it will be fixed.
“It’s not just homeless people right on the fringe, it’s people who have got full time jobs and have got their kids in schools who are getting smashed.”
Cr Spooner – who appeared via Zoom from his honeymoon – said a report by the council’s staff – even though it relied on four-year-old data – was troubling.
According to the report, the average weekly rent in the Byron Shire in 2006 was $250, compared to a weekly household income of $738.
A decade later, the average weekly rent was $400, while household income sat at $1143. At that time, more than a quarter of households in the Byron Shire had a weekly income of less than $650.
Councillors acknowledged those figures would be even more troubling in 2021.
“After having probably too many glasses of champagne (it was) probably the most sobering
report that I’ve read in my eight years as a councillor,” Cr Spooner said.
Originally published as Byron Shire Council will invite Melinda Pavey, Rob Stokes and other councils to help confront region’s ‘hideous’ housing issue
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