Byron Bay is far from the working-class community it once was, but the popular tourist town now seems in danger of losing its blue-collar workers.
Key points:
- A local real estate agent in Byron Bay says property prices have increased astronomically over the past 12 months
- Local blue-collar workers are now finding the area unaffordable as buyers from Sydney and Melbourne move in
- Byron Mayor Simon Richardson says it's important the town doesn't become a playground for the rich
Property prices in the area have exploded over the last 12 months.
Local real estate agent Damien Smith said many of the buyers were people from Sydney or Melbourne who now realised they could work from home and live wherever they wanted.
"Australians decided they wanted to move to our end of the world and the place did light up," he said.
ABC News: Shaun Kingma
)For people like Brad Reed, who grew up in Byron Bay and still holds down two jobs in the town as a landscaper and chef, the decision to move further south to Ballina was simple.
"The reality is that rents are just insane," he said.
"So no play money."
ABC News: Samantha Turnbull
)Traditional owners priced out
In pre-COVID times, the town attracted more than two million visitors a year.
It sits on Bundjalung Country, and over the last 20 years the local Arakwal people have negotiated a series of Indigenous Land Use Agreements.
In 2019, a Native Title claim for the area was approved, but the concept of traditional ownership does not mean local Aboriginal people are immune to market forces.
"Out of over 100 people, we've only had five Arakwal people living in our traditional homeland," said Bundjalung woman Delta Kay, who runs cultural tours in the area.
ABC News: Shaun Kingma
)Kirra Pendergast has strong family ties to the town where she grew up, but was not willing to pay the prices being asked for accommodation.
"I've seen friends having to leave this place like literally in droves to move out to up to an hour away and still work in Byron," she said.
"I've got a couple of girlfriends that are in situations where they're either couch surfing or staying in a friend's garage, because there is nothing available that is affordable for them."
'People didn't want to come here because it smelled'
Kirra's father Max Pendergast has been around long enough to know Byron Bay was not always the place everyone wanted to be.
"It was a funny town because it had the abattoir, then it had a whaling station, then it had sand mining and Norco's big dairy company here and people didn't want to come here because it smelled," he said.
"It smelled of the whales, it smelled of the meatworks and frankly I wish it still did."
Supplied: EJ Wright Collection, Byron Bay Library
)The Byron Shire Council has proposed a number of strategies to address the affordability issue.
It wants to establish a community land trust that would see affordable accommodation built on council-owned property.
It is also pushing the state government for a 90-day annual cap on short-term holiday letting.
ABC News: Shaun Kingma
)Byron Mayor Simon Richardson said it was important the town did not simply become a playground for the rich and famous.
"A diverse community is a sustainable and healthy community," he said.
"When you only have one type, whether it's a rich enclave or a poor enclave, you lose it as a community.
"If you don't see those older people, if you don't see those younger people, if you don't have a diversity of economic sectors as well as community sectors you're only half a community."
Watch this story tonight on 7.30 on ABC TV and iview.
Byron Bay property prices push local workers out of town - ABC News
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment