Ed,

Referring to your front page article in the (4/12/2014 CVI), the Clarence Valley Council decided to adopt, by 7 votes to 2, a rezoning of the section of Yamba Hill defined by Church and Clarence Streets, Pacific Parade and Yamba Street from R2 to R3.

This hypocrisy is supposed to be in line with the “North Coast Regional Plan 2041 and Council’s Local Planning and Policy Framework based on the four pillars – supply, diversity, affordability and resilience.”

Supply: The remainder of Yamba Hill and Flat is already zoned R3 and there is ample underutilized supply of sites for building of unit complexes.

Diversity: This already exists as the present zoning only allows single dwellings, duplexes and granny flats which suit the small sized lots, whereas changing to R3 will allow multi-unit complexes over all of Yamba Hill and Flat. These will result due to the high cost of land in the area.

Affordability: It is common sense that the days of affordable housing on Yamba Hill are long gone. House and units are selling for between $2 and $7 million. Cramming more housing and people will definitely not lower prices but create a proliferation of Airbnbs with developers forever challenging the Development Control Plan to try and pack more units on a block.

Resilience: If council is so worried about resilience for the residents it should be looking at providing more services in the town, rectifying the one way in and one way out access problem (which has been on the drawing board for about 40 years) to overcome the problem of being isolated in flood times or in the event of a serious vehicle accident.

Every landowner in the area I have spoken to are against the rezoning. Many are absent landlords and have no idea that a rezoning proposal was being dealt with by council, but are most upset when they find out too late. Despite this, council received 372 objections and only 5 supporting the LHS – surely this must reflect the feelings of the residents but appears to have been completely ignored by the planning staff. Heed the residents!

Yamba has tourism as its main focus and income, but tourists will look elsewhere if the town becomes densely populated just like many of the Coastal towns which they now avoid.

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

John & Rae McNamara, Yamba