After about half of the 873 public submissions Council received objecting to its draft Local Housing Strategy came from Iluka residents, about 200 people packed the Iluka Community Hall last Thursday to hear about the details of the revised strategy currently on exhibition.

When Clarence Valley Council’s (CVC) draft Local Housing Strategy (LHS) was initially placed on public exhibition twice in 2023, 873 public submissions and a petition with 1086 signatures were received against the draft, so council revised the draft LHS, reducing building height limits in Yamba and Iluka.

Iluka Focus Group member, Sonya Maley said all candidates in the September 14 Local Government Election were invited to address the 4.30pm meeting, with most of the candidates and current councillors Greg Clancy, Bill Day, and Karen Toms attending.

She said this was the second meeting held in Iluka about the draft LHS and on both occasions the hall was packed, with standing room only and people spilling out the doors.

“In the response to the last draft, nearly half the submissions received by council were from Iluka and we are only 3 per-cent of the population of the Clarence Valley,” she said.

“We invited the candidates and the current councillors to come along to talk about their views on the strategy, listen to the presentation and meet the community.

“There is a concerning lack of disclosure in the revised housing strategy, and we wanted to let the community know what we had found.

“We thought it would be good for the candidates to come along and see how the community felt. Mrs Maley said a key issue raised at the meeting was the ample amount of land already zoned for medium density housing in Iluka.

“A technical review presented by ecologist and strategic planner Dr Mark Kingston concluded that ‘the intervention for Iluka is neither necessary nor desirable,” she said.

“We walked all area’s currently zoned medium density in Iluka and found that only 15 percent of the land currently zoned as medium density was in fact being used for that purpose.”

“Iluka can more than accommodate for the projected increase in population with our current zoning, something council could have easily investigated before releasing the draft LHS,” Dr Kingston said.

The new R1 general residential has been introduced as an alternative to the originally proposed medium density R3 but CVC didn’t disclose the other possible uses of land under this new zoning in the revised draft LHS.

“There’s a lot of other non-residential uses allowed in this zone including bars, clubs, back packers, retail outlets, hotels and many other tourism associated ventures,” Mrs Maley said.

“You think residents would have a right to know and the lack of transparency is really concerning.

“The rezoning areas proposed for Iluka are located in prime real estate locations and aren’t suitable for affordable housing options.

“We’ve asked Council why they believe these areas in particular meet the housing needs of the community but are still waiting for a response.”

To make a submission about the revised draft LHS before the closing date of September 23 at 4pm visit https://www.clarence.nsw.gov.au/On-exhibition/Amended-Draft-Local-Housing-Strategy-for-Re-Exhibition.

This article appeared in the Clarence Valley Independent, 4 September 2024.