Tweed Shire Council development applications delayed for months

Developers and business owners are feeling the burn as Tweed Shire Council idles almost a year on applications. Here’s what council has to say.

Tweed business owners and developers are experiencing significant delays in having their development applications approved.

Gary Wall waited 10 and a half months to renovate the Uki Post Office and Bastion Lane coffee shop to how it is today.

He was fortunate to be in an industry that is growing as online shopping becomes the norm and the coffee business grows he’s ready to build an expansion to store the beans, the parcels and have a place to live out the back of the business.

Gary Wall owner of Bastion Lane and the Uki post office sits on coffee beans being stored at the front of the post office because there is no space out the back. He has been waiting several months for development approval so he can expand his business. Picture: Liana Walker

Already having experienced delays with the council, he expects his expansion application – lodged in September last year – will take a similar amount of time, despite going through a town planner.

“Because the business itself is growing we are experiencing growing pains in the fact this is a 112-year-old building,” Mr Wall said.

“It was never meant for a huge amount of parcels coming through and a growing coffee business as well.

“The DA itself is a two-storey development, it’s low rise and it’s going to help support economic growth.”

He said he believed three months was a reasonable amount of time for approval.

$30 million court decision

Associate director of Sydney developers FFC Commercial Harry Ghamraoui is ready to bring a $30 million resort style 104 unit residential flat to the heart of Tweed Heads.

After 60 days passed Mr Ghamraoui has exercised his right to take the matter to the Land and Environment Court on a deemed refusal appeal.

“Tweed is up and coming and there’s a lot of interest in the area,” Mr Ghamraoui said.

“They need more staff to accommodate that.”

The appeal goes to a conciliation conference in April when Mr Ghamraoui hopes a decision will be made on his application.

Funds depleting

Tom Cornish is spending $10,000 a month in rent in a space where he can’t turn a profit.

He’s concerned if his microbrewery and licenced cafe don’t get approved soon he may not be able to afford his plans.

“This (building) is for a non-heritage building and a laneway which used to be a bakery,” Mr Cornish said.

“We want to make it a licenced cafe.

“That submission has been with the council since February 2021 – that’s almost a year now waiting for that approval.”

Thomas Cornish is planning to open a licenced cafe and a brewery in Murwillumbah for beer label The Spangled Drongo. Picture: Liana Walker

He said waiting for approval had pushed the business plan six months behind schedule.

“We’re probably a bit defeated, but we’re eager and excited to get approved,” Mr Cornish said.

“There’s the main brewery DA and I’m just wondering how long I can keep paying $10,000 a month in rent until that is approved or until I can’t actually do the fit out that I want.”

‘No common sense’

Graham Dietrich wants to change the use of the homestead at his accommodation business, Mount Warning Estate, from a regular rental into a holiday tenancy.

There have been no issues renting the heritage-listed building to regular tenants, but the change of use has been an ongoing saga full of red tape.

The rural zoning means he has to apply for a change of use and the heritage listing required an extensive heritage report costing $8000 after a $4000 grant.

Graham Dietrich has been struggling with red tape to get his homestead approved for a change of use. Picture: Liana Walker

After producing the report, the council told him his proposed change of use wasn‘t permitted under zoning rules.

But when he raised the presence of a heritage clause, he was told it could be possible through that avenue.

Being told he could now go ahead with applying for a change of use, he hired a town planner.

He lodged an application in August 2021 and is still waiting determination.

“You have to find a way to tick the boxes because they want to have every single box ticked,” Mr Dietrich said.

“There’s no common sense.”

He said he was concerned at the end of the day the council could still turn around and decline his application.

Issues in council

Tweed Shire Council planning director Vince Connell said the current average for DA determination was 118 days, up from between 60 to 80 days pre-Covid.

Mr Connell said a surge in applications, Covid-19 related issues such as border closures stopping staff from getting to work, large state-based applications such as the Tweed Valley Regional Hospital and a series of school redevelopments and multiple green field developments were among the factors contributing to delays.

He said the introduction of the State Planning Portal, a property boom leading to competition for labour, the poor quality of DAs being lodged while staff tackled more than a dozen Land and Environment Court had also contributed.

Mr Connell said the council’s planning and regulation division currently has 89 staff including 10 town planners in development assessment and 3.6 town planners in the building unit.

“The ability of councils to raise additional revenue for expenditure on additional staff has also been severely restricted by decades of the NSW Government capping DA fees,” Mr Connell said.

Tweed Shire Council Planning Director Vince Connell. Photo: Blainey Woodham

He said the removal of the council’s power to place a modest levy on all DAs to fund compliance officers and the most recent rate cap of 0.7 per cent also restricted council’s ability to fund more staff.

“Council officers will be presenting a report for the new council’s consideration in February that would make a special rate variation application to IPART to fund an additional three Town Planners,” Mr Connell said.

“This will be a matter for the new council and would require consultation with the community.

“In the absence of fees for DAs that reflect the true costs of assessment, coupled with the removal of the compliance levy by the state in December – which effectively removed funding for two staff – there is little option but to discuss increasing rates to fund the shortfall.”

He said aside from accepting that booms would increase assessment times, the only other options were to consider reducing services elsewhere or to take a more stringent hard line approach to assessments that would result in more refusals.

Mayor’s response

Mayor Chris Cherry said fixing the DA approvals process was a priority for the council, however a mix of road blocks had stretched out the backlog.

Ms Cherry said the Tweed Shire had a 99 per cent approval rate for applications.

Tweed Shire Council Mayor, Chris Cherry. Picture: Matt Roberts

“Our staff go above and beyond to try to help the DA applicants in terms of giving them feedback on what can and can’t be supported,” Ms Cherry said.

“A lot of councils will just reject an application if it doesn't have all the information required.

“We don’t have that attitude.”

She said it was up to the community to decide if they would want a faster application process with a higher rate of rejection or a slower process with a higher approval rate.