Our home and part of the living room is girt by sea

Steve says:

09:45am | 26/09/09

Here is a horrifying thought…
The greens holding the balance of power federally or any position of control in any Government with their “humans are a plague on this earth” attitudes. Byron used to be the haven of the then Hippie culture but the dread locked tree huggers of the 70s have all grown up now, the reality of life hit home and their little part of heaven is now worth a fortune. Some do still flex their “fuzzy feel good” self interest by voting for these air head communists into positions of decision. This policy is not “planed retreat” it is flushing the hard earned assets of a few individual home owners out to sea when perfectly simple construction methods would preserve the boundaries of the blocks of land these poor sods paid for and pay rates on.

The old adage, you get the government you deserve….

Choomsy says:

09:49am | 26/09/09

Penbo - good article and issue. I am originally from Lismore in Northern NSW and still own a holiday house at Byron (from which I am writing this comment). The Greens dominated council here is a joke. It is a laughing stock not only in Local Govt circles in NSW but nationwide - for it’s policies and senior staff turnover.

Just one thing you forgot to mention - all State electorates north of Kempsey are held by Nationals MP’s and all bar one (Tweed) have been held by the Nats for a long, long time and you can safely assume that the Nats will continue to hold these seats at the next election.

In my opinion, linking the inaction of Rees and State Labor to stand up to Byron to the loss of crucial seats in Sydney is going a bit too far - Federal elections can be influenced by far flung issues (take Wentworth and the Tassie Pulp mill for instance), while State elections here in NSW take a local issue feel. I personally don’t think that the gentile residents of Balmain could give two hoots about a council problem in Byron Bay.

One more point - if the Greens decide to give preferences to Rees and the ALP because they will not interfere with Byron Council then the Greens need to explain why it want to keep the most corrupt and inept Government that has ever seen power in this state. I think the fact they would give preferences to Labor demonstrates that the Greens are just as corrupt.

eddie says:

10:09am | 26/09/09

why should the taxpaying public pay for the major works required to prevent the encroachment of the sea onto low lying residential properties. Creating breakwater walls and groynes or pumping sand quite often leads to serious problems elswhere on the coast, look at Kirra.
How many of these people have purchased their properties in the last 2 decades, I’d have a stab - the vast majority. Blind freddy could see that there has been an erosion problem in the area at least since my first visit there in the late ‘70s. If the beach is moving back and you are looking at a property adjacent to it would you look at the receding beach line and think - it will stop at my back fence, it has to respect property boundaries dosent it?
The council is right in saying that they cannot effectivly stop the erosion of the beach in an eccologically sound manner and right to prevent an ad-hoc approach being taken by property owners which would probably do more harm than good.
It wont be the first residential area in the region to be innundated either. Moreton bay has lost soome small islands and others have shrunk considerably and the original township of Amity on Straddie is long gone.
The owners should have thought about it before they stumped up the cash for low lying beachfront homes.

penguin says:

11:01am | 26/09/09

Perhaps less knee-jerk abuse of the “Greens” and more thought would help. For at least 15 years, the policy of “planned retreat” has been clear. Anyone who stumped up a million to buy on the foredune at Belongil knew the risk they were taking. Now they expect the council to bail them out. Groins, rock walls etc will destroy the beach for the entire community. In any event, these beachfront properties are doomed with just a small amount of sea level rise. The council can no more order back the tide than could King Canute.

My guess is that this is part of a drive by property developers to get rid of the Green council so that they can bring in high rises, 5 star hotels and MacDonalds. You guys already have the Gold Coast and have just grabbed the Tweed Coast. Why should you be allowed to control the entire coastline, just so you can become multimillonaires?

Fred Walker says:

11:06am | 26/09/09

“why should the taxpaying public pay for the major works required to prevent the encroachment of the sea onto low lying residential properties.”

The council is actually stopping people spending their OWN MONEY on protective measures, not taxpayer funds.

eddie says:

12:18pm | 26/09/09

@fred walker- you should read the whole of my post, I also agree they should be stopped from conducting their own works for the same reasons that the council is not acting, in fact individual landowners trying to shore up their own properties would more than likely ad to the problems there.

DJB says:

12:20pm | 26/09/09

Thank God we have the council we voted for here in Byron…a greens dominated council, voted for by the majority, who won the last council election fair and square. After a couple of corrupt right wing councils had almost bankrupted our shire and allowed all sorts of shonky deals we now have a council that has the concerns of the majority of residents as its priority. And one of those concerns is the open slather development that has given us the eyesore that is the Gold Coast and the rapidly catching up, Tweed Shire.  Byron Mayor Jan Barham knows only too well the threats this environmentally aware region is under, with developers lobbying Macquarie St. incessantly for the privilege to pillage and plunder. The latest move by Rees and The Hon. Kristina Kerscher KENEALLY is to open up the Casino to Murwillimbah rail corridor for development and deprive this area of the rail infrastructure that a future more enlightened and a less corrupt state govt. will utilise for the benefit of all to move both passengers and freight.  If the Byron Council is so far removed from the reality that Mr. Penberthy seems to believe it should be part of, how come so many people are desirous of moving to this area to immerse themselves in the clean and green environment we have fought so hard to protect?

Shane From Melbourne says:

02:19pm | 26/09/09

Idiots who build their houses too close to coastlines, floodplains and bush fire prone areas don’t deserve protection. They’ve made their choice and should live with it. They certainly don’t complain about the property values when they go up.

David Stolper says:

02:54pm | 26/09/09

Let’s put this in perspective we are talking about long-term erosion that will continue to make the shoreline and beach retreat over the coming decades and centuries.

Now, there are 3 main options to consider:

1) Residents protect their land with a seawall, sea levels continue to rise and the beach eventually disappears (as has happened in many parts of the world) meaning that no-one can use the beach because it will not longer be there.

2) Residents are not allowed to build seawalls and have to move or lose their house. The beach continues to migrate landwards but is maintained for everyone else in the community to use.

3) The beach and the properties are protected through multi-million dollar sand nourishment projects that need to continue forever. These would be funded by the community on behalf of the few living on the beachfront.

Australia has the most beautiful beaches in the world and we should be proud to protect them for all the community today and for our children tomorrow.

Seawalls should be banned because they will eventuallly destroy the beach and the Greens are right to support this.

Residents should be compensated depending on the circumstances.

Lisa says:

02:59pm | 26/09/09

Surely it was the council responsibility to prevent the initial sub-division and sale of the original houseblocks…isn’t that what council was for? Perhaps the land-owners can sue the council for not doing its job in the first place.

lantana says:

03:10pm | 26/09/09

It’s not knee-jerk abuse to point out that a group of people appear to be acting in a remarkably silly way.  Some members of the council may want to worship Gaia, etc, but they should not be allowed to impose their religion/politics via any level of government.

And perhaps less knee-jerk abuse of people trying to protect their homes might lead to a better discussion, instead of accusing them all of being property developers and writing them off.  It also sometimes seems as though the old commos among the Greens are still trying to abolish private ownership so that they can move us closer to their glorious revolution.  North Korea or East Germany, anyone?  No, I thought not.

Heléna says:

10:30pm | 26/09/09

I think it’s tragic! - these poor people have worked hard bought these homes and now risk losing all because of a meddling council that should be representing them

@eddie as Fred Walker posted the council is stopping the homeowners from spending their own money to protect their homes - I do not think they should have any right to do so

Paul says:

07:24am | 27/09/09

Quit the whining, and green bashing and grow up. A couple of streets have already been washed into the sea in Belongil, historically. There was a ‘planned retreat’ at Marshalls Creek before it was washed away, organised the Dept of Lands a couple of decades ago, north of Belongil.  Some people have more money than sense.

Paul says:

09:57am | 27/09/09

@Fred yes you spend your OWN MONEY but as the beach encroaches YOU end up OWNING the beach, as has already happened at high tide in certain points. I understand that many landholders in Belongil made poor investment decisions and did not show due diligence. Your problem Bucko. I claim my aussie birthright to walk and use beaches freely. I won’t sacrifice that to greed or stupidity or environmental ignorance.

alto says:

10:37am | 27/09/09

Nah, let the materialistic waterfront property owning people wash into the sea on the wave of ocean rising that they helped create. I remember a hymn we were taught as a children: ‘the foolish man builds his house upon the sand’.

Bruce Nelson says:

08:38pm | 27/09/09

Polarising eh? Take the politics out of the story and you don’t have an issue beyond the town limits of a small minded community who wants their cake and eat it too. How come whenever Byron Bay, the Greens and beachfront properties are thrown into the mix we hear howls about materialistic land owners, imminent high rise development creeping down from the Gold Coast and the total loss of a pristine environment? Poor buggers, they really do live in hell.

Keep the issue of private property being affected by extraneous causes but move the location and see what happens?

In April this year at least 40 homes were affected by land subsidence in the Ipswich suburb of Collingwood Park. The Queensland Government has offered a $10 million assistance package to help but some poor residents will miss out on any assistance, even though they may never be able to sell their houses. They’ll have to foot any bill for repairs. These are working class families whose lives have been ruined. No one has called into question any financial assistance, rather supported it.

And after torrential rains on the Gold Coast in 2005, a number of homes were seriously damaged due to land slips on Currumbin Hill. Four years have passed, and while the Council has assisted in rectifying the problem, most residents have either spent hundreds of thousands of dollars securing their homes or taken a huge hit in their property values and sold.

Home ownership is still an important part of the Australian psyche, and regardless of whether you live in utopian Byron Bay, working class Ipswich or any other part of the country, you should have the right to defend your property.

Vixen says:

10:23pm | 27/09/09

I am acquainted with a family who has periodically, over 40 years,  taken on Councils to reclaim a large allotment of land that was lost to the ocean in a gale.  No luck, they shouldn’t have bought low lying land in the first place. There is one house block left of the area and, in years gone by you could see them, with storms approaching, out with a bulldozer building up sand banks.  the house (such as it is) survived the 1975 easterly gale.  It won’t be so lucky next time.  That’s life.

Wayne says:

07:28am | 28/09/09

You would be surprised at just how little power council has to enforce anything. The Australian Constitution does not recognize local Government. There has been 2 attempts by the Federal Government to alter the constitution to recognize our council as a local Government but it has failed twice. The last referendum was held on the 3rd of September 1988 but 67% of the population were smart enough to realize we don’t need 3 tiers of Government. Sack the lot of them!!

regina says:

03:53pm | 28/09/09

oh you speak the truth dave.

that death stare you get when you’re sitting on the couch trying your very best to save the planet can sometimes be rather hard to take.

especially when there is little time in the few ad breaks and between beer and chip bowl refills to explain all that global warming clap-trap ...er, i mean issues of public concern.