NEW BRUNSWICK HEADS COMMUNITY NEEDED TO HELP EASE HOUSING CRISIS

Almost 7,000 new homes will need to be delivered across the Byron Shire over the next 20 years to keep pace with market demand, with Brunswick Heads earmarked as a priority development area, according to a recent report from Council.

Byron Shire Council’s September 2023 Draft Housing Options Paper shows 6,695 new dwellings are needed for the shire over the next 20 years, with 1,990 of those homes – or 30 per cent of forecast requirement – earmarked for Brunswick Heads.

Mullumbimby will target 24.5 per cent of the new housing requirement, with Byron Bay/Sunrise taking in 18.5 per cent.

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Council’s future housing strategy is for more than half of all new homes in the Byron Shire to be created in ‘new release’ areas, including “sites identified in the Draft Northern Rivers Resilient Lands Strategy near Bangalow and Brunswick Heads which are on significant farmland.”

With the housing crisis escalating in tandem with local population growth, the release of new land is welcome news for many young families according to Clarence Property General Manager Paul Rippon.

Mr Rippon says demand continues to outpace supply and Clarence Property’s Wallum community – which is the only already-zoned and approved Brunswick Heads site included as part of the housing strategy – is a key project in helping address the problem.

Almost 7,000 new homes will need to be delivered across the Byron Shire over the next 20 years to keep pace with market demand

He says recent sales demonstrate the majority of locals support the project and want new land to be made available as soon as possible, to avoid being priced out of an already heated market.

“We purchased the Wallum site in 2021 and sold the first 19 homesites in one of the most severe property shortages in the past 20 years, due to the lack of supply and pent-up demand for land in the Brunswick Heads region,” he said.

“The Wallum site has been earmarked for residential development since 1988 and while waiting for this land to be released many locals have been priced out of the market.”

Mr Rippon said purchasers in the first stage of Wallum were mostly local, young families.

“A number of purchasers are young people who have grown up in and around Brunswick Heads who want to buy a home and raise their family in the community they know and love, but the opportunity to do so has been limited,” he said.

“When stage one of Wallum was released, local owner occupiers seized the chance. We even had a duplex lot bought by two young families who plan to build a house each, so it’s providing new pathways for people to enter the property market and is being delivered with the Brunswick Heads community front of mind.”

To review a fact sheet about the Wallum development, please visit here.

For more local Mullumbimby news, click here.