On a flood-ravaged Lismore street, ‘squatters’ take on premier

In the quiet of a Lismore morning, the sound of Tyson’s guitar carries along Pine Street.

The rain has stopped and the Wilsons River, along with the evacuation warnings hanging over the town, is slowly receding.

Tyson, 17, smiles as he picks the strings in an upstairs bedroom of the house he and his mother have called home since early February after living in their car for the past two years.

“WELCOME TO PINE STREET,” a sign on the street below reads.

“This is an intentional community in liberated space.”

Tyson says he and his mother will return to living in their car if they are evicted from the Pine Street property they are living in.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Tyson and his mother, originally from the Central Coast, headed north after leaving what he describes as a “shitty” family situation, and while the past two years have been tough, the teenager has a new lease on life after taking up his lodgings.

“Having my own room again feels so great,” Tyson says.

But Tyson and his mother, along with the other 40-odd people who have illegally moved into six of the street’s houses, will soon be forced out of the properties after Premier Chris Minns vowed to demolish the Pine Street properties.

The NSW Reconstruction Authority bought the six homes, condemned after the 2022 floods that devastated Lismore, under a $900 million buyback scheme in which homes were purchased to be on-sold and relocated away from the flood-prone parts of the Northern Rivers town.

“We bought those houses so that we could keep the community safe, so that no one would live there and to have squatters move in off the back of that, is completely unacceptable,” Minns said on Tuesday morning.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has vowed to demolish the homes on Pine Street in Lismore set for relocationCredit: AAPIMAGE

“We’re going to make sure these communities are safe, and we can’t have an intolerable situation where large numbers of people are in harm’s way after NSW taxpayers have spent millions of dollars trying to make the community safer.”

Minns, who said the demolition would take place in coming weeks, said the government had launched court proceedings, a move he was previously unaware of, to evict members of the Pine Street community from the homes before ex-tropical cyclone Alfred threatened to lash Lismore.

On Tuesday morning, a handful of people had returned to the homes after evacuating last week, while the flooded overflow of a nearby creek that had split Pine Street in two had almost completely receded from the bitumen.

The establishment of the Pine Street community has divided opinion in Lismore.

Lismore mayor Steve Krieg backs Minns’ vow to demolish the Pine Street homes, labelling community members’ conduct “criminal”.

“They’ve been asked to leave, they’ve been told to leave, they’ve been ordered to leave,” Krieg says.

“It’s not drastic action when you consider that just about every avenue has been explored to get them out of a property that is legally not theirs.

“It’s certainly not the premier’s fault that it’s come to this, it’s these people’s refusal to follow instructions and to be members of our society, to follow the rules, to obey the laws like 99 per cent of the population do on any given day.

“If it takes demolishing these houses that could be saved to get rid of these people, then so be it. Make it happen.”

A Reconstruction Authority spokesperson said the authority was working with NSW Police to “resolve the issue of occupants illegally living” in the homes, and would engage contractors to start emergency demolition “as quickly as possible”.

“Pine Street, where illegal occupants have been staying, was impacted by the cyclone with the street flooded and occupants subject to an evacuation order by the SES,” the spokesperson said.

“It is untenable for them to return and illegally occupy these homes again.”

The spokesperson added the homes “pose a serious and ongoing risk to human life”.

NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson, who Minns took aim at on radio station 2GB on Tuesday morning for supporting the Pine Street community, accused the premier of “punching down on a community that he knows nothing about”.

“The community at Pine Street, in no uncertain terms, is living the complexities of all the crises of life,” Higginson says.

“It is so hurtful.”

Andrew George, a volunteer with grassroots recovery organisation Reclaim Our Recovery, who acts as a spokesperson for the Pine Street community but does not live on the street, says the community has been “left on edge” by the government’s attempts to enforce evictions.

George says Pine Street community members are not trying to “jump the queue” to secure government housing – a claim Minns made on Tuesday morning – and only intended to live in the properties until they had been purchased and relocated.

“The people living on Pine Street are happy for these houses to be relocated, they’ve said they would allow the Reconstruction Authority to, you know, come through and take photos and check them out for that process,” George says.

“That is what the community wants: the houses to be relocated. It’s what we need for housing, for the houses to be relocated. It’s a big bluff from Chris Minns with no understanding of the actual reality to say ‘demolish them all’.”

George says the premier has abandoned Northern Rivers residents still recovering from the 2022 floods.

“In the middle of a housing crisis, the government is responsible for housing, responsible for climate, responsible for recovery, and they’ve created a perfectly nonsensical reality of boarded up houses in a housing crisis,” he says.

“People need shelter, and they’ve [sought] shelter.”

Minns defended Reconstruction Authority staff who held meetings with Pine Street community members to discuss relocating them.

Paul Paitson, a Texan who bought his Pine Street home in 1989, says Pine Street community members are doing a “good thing” for the houses by maintaining them.

Paul Paitson is the only homeowner left on Pine Street.Credit: Louise Kennerley

“Why not have people in them? Because they’re actually looked after better with someone in them,” says Paitson, the only Pine Street resident who declined the NSW government’s buyback offer.

“If you leave them empty, what are you going to get? You’re going to get rats, mice, snakes, possums, everything.”

“The wildlife will move in, the plants the gardens will overgrow.”

What exactly happens next for the homes on Pine Street is not clear, but community members with nowhere else to go are prepared to stand their ground.

But, Tyson says, if Minns makes good on his vow, he and his mother will again be homeless.

“We’ll be back in the car again,” Tyson says.

“Rent is so expensive ... we just can’t afford it.”

The Reconstruction Authority has been contacted for comment.

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