A GROUP OF Byron Bay locals is fighting to save the old Byron District Hospital site from developers, and instead have it placed in community hands.
At a public meeting on August 23 about 50 locals from a range of businesses and community groups indicated their desire to preserve the site for ‘community benefit’ and brainstormed a number of possible ideas for its future use.
These included turning the facility into a drop-in-style centre for homeless people, a women’s refuge, a museum or affordable housing.
Present at the meeting was Nationals MLC Ben Franklin, who said that NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard had promised that the site would not be sold until the community had been given a chance to pitch its proposal.
‘I don’t know that I can make it happen [saving the site from development] but we have got the first option,’ Mr Franklin told the meeting.
The State Government has previously indicated that the 5,000 square metre site would be sold to offset the cost of building the Byron Central Hospital.
And given its proximity to the heart of Byron Bay, the property would be an attractive prospect for developers and would fetch millions on the open market.
Byron Writers Festival founder Chris Hanley chaired the meeting and said, ‘We all know what’s going to happen to it unless we do something.’
Any hopes that, like Mullumbimby Hospital, the site might be sold to the community for a token sum, were quickly dispelled by Mr Franklin.
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My suggestion regarding the old hospital site.
A land swap is arranged by council involving the hospital site at the corner of Shirley Street and Wordsworth Street and the Byron Motor Lodge Motel site on the corner of Shirley Street and Butler Street.
The land upon which the Motor Lodge currently sits is compulsorily acquired by council, and the operators are recompensed – to some extent – by being granted a portion of the land of the old hospital upon which to construct a new motel.
This gives the council another option for the route of the bypass – from the Shirley Street/Butler Street roundabout, a new bypass road takes you diagonally across the Motor lodge site on to the rail track alignment to then exit that as recommended on the preferred routing, at Browning Street.
I would suggest that Butler Street residents will be happier with their street able to continue with its current traffic levels; that Butler Street could be made more pedestrian-and-bike friendly incorporating this as a section of the Rail Trail route; that the issue of wetlands degradation at the southern end of the bypass route would be minimised; that accommodation numbers would not decrease as the Motor Lodge owners build a new motel of similar size at a portion of the old hospital site; and that the remainder of the hospital site is provided for community activities.