A Byron Bay farmer has been ordered to demolish his historic bush cabin home and fined thousands of dollars after the left-wing local council used a housing amnesty against him.
Benjamin Webster, who has lived in the cabin located deep in the rainforest on a 40ha-block from 2019 until receiving a non-habitation order, told Noticer News the Greens-dominated Byron Shire Council “turned tyrannical” after he signed up to the moratorium in an attempt to regularise the home in 2021.
He said the council sent compliance officers out to his home just weeks after he provided information about the cabin on a online portal set up for the housing amnesty, and slapped him with the non-habitation order and a $750 administration fee.
Mr Webster appealed the council’s January 2022 stop use order in the NSW Land and Environment Court (LEC) where he asked to be able to continue to use the cabin as a dwelling while he sought development consent, telling the court locals were facing a housing crisis due to repeated floods in the region.
He provided aerial photographs to show there was a dwelling on the site prior to 1968, but the council argued it was unlawfully constructed in the 1980s, and the appeal was dismissed.
Since then Mr Webster has been hit with another non-habitation order, a demolition order, a stop work order for fire trail repairs, and a fine of $3,000 for “not complying with compliance officers’ questions” for refusing to provide council with his phone and business records.
Then in November last year the council took the farm where Mr Webster’s cabin is located to the LEC alleging that dwellings on the site being used for holiday letting were unauthorised and not up to standard, resulting in an order to cease leasing and advertising.
Mr Webster said that the court proceedings had been damaging both financially and mentally, and that he knew of other locals in similar situations who were too afraid to fight back.
“Byron Shire has long been a counter-culture and hippy hub where alternative folks have built small cabins on private land to put a humble roof over their heads,” Mr Webster said.
“I have taken all possible measures to work with council to regularise my dwelling, including submitting a DA that was drafted by a town planner previously employed by Byron Shire Council, architectural plans, fire plans and more. This was rejected by council without a reason provided and since I have endeavoured to be told by council what I need to do to make the cabin legal.
“[The council] used the information about my cabin to launch a compliance attack. This was not just my experience but has been the experience of many people in the shire. I have spoken with five separate property owners who have experienced the exact same story. I am sure there are many more, however most are too scared of council to speak out.”
Last month another local resident told The Echo they also regretted contacting council during the 2021 amnesty and would never do so again.
“Two compliance officers and a security guard turned up at my house – it was pretty intimidating, and I felt I had to do what they said. There is virtually no viable pathway for people to become legal in these old communities,” they said.
“It’s a historical issue in the Shire, that previous councils let happen, so they can’t expect it to all to magically fix itself. Council needs to take some responsibility and genuinely help people, while being transparent about what they are legally required to do.”
Also last month a small community of locals in nearby Upper Main Arm – about 30 families including children – were ordered to find “alternative accommodation” after demolition orders were placed on their shared multiple occupancy (MO) property.
Dean of Law at Southern Cross University and former magistrate Professor David Heilpern described the actions of compliance officers as “cruel”, and said the council had no legal obligation to crack down on unauthorised development.
“No other council on the North Coast is threatening to demolish houses on multiple occupancies that have existed on the fringes of legality for decades,” he said.
Green Mayor Sarah Ndiaye defended the MO demolition order, saying there was a “history of non-compliance” at the site and said she hoped to hear directly from the affected residents, adding that “dialogue and mutual understanding and face-to-face always seems to work better as does ground-truthing the site”.
But another Byron Bay local described the situation as “militant bureaucratic overreach”.
“So much mean-spirited madness running amok in the world right now and we have these little grim apparatchiks on the loose ruining people’s lives – for what?
To satisfy their little rule books and their little egos?” they said.
“MOs and the people who live in them are not a problem- they are a solution to the housing crisis.
As for the Mayor’s attempt at old school new age gobbledegook (ground-truthing the site) – what can one say except it’s an absolute pitiful display of lack of leadership, on every level.”
Noticer News contacted Byron Shire Council for comment.
