SECRET REPORT TO DECIDE ROUNDHOUSE FATE

From an Ocean Shores Community Association Press Release.

A decision on the fate of the Roundhouse site will be made this week. A Confidential Report (14.2 in the Byron Shire Council Agenda for Thursday, April 18^th), advises councillors about a new agreement for easements with the Ocean Shores Country Club for Council’s proposed 11 lot subdivision of the Roundhouse site, prior to issuing tenders for subdivision.

The Report states:

“The purpose of this report is to advise Council that a new agreement has been finalised and to report the matter to Council prior to seeking tenders for the works associated with construction of the subdivision.”

The Report is confidential, so the community may never know the reasons if Council votes to go ahead with the subdivision, as the report recommends.

The Ocean Shores and wider Byron community have been fighting for years to stop this land being subdivided by Council and sold. Instead, the Roundhouse Action Group and the OSCA have requested Council many times to dedicate this land for public use as a cultural precinct. 

The vision of RAG and OSCA and 90% of the local community is that the land be retained for public use.

In a Shire famous for its cultural arts, Byron Council has never provided a permanent public art gallery. The Roundhouse Action Group has long advocated for a public cultural building on the Roundhouse site, incorporating gallery, museum, theatre, cinema, restaurant and archival space. This can be done as a long term project without putting an economic burden on the Council.

The Roundhouse site is Heritage listed in Council’s Heritage plan. It will always be associated with the founding of the town of Ocean Shores and, prior to that, with the regional dairy industry, the major economic driver of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Jack Bower’s farmhouse “Oceanview” was on the site of the Roundhouse knoll.

RAG and OSCA call on the new Councillors to keep their word made at the Ocean Shores Community Centre prior to the Council election and not subdivide the Roundhouse site, but retain it for public use as a cultural precinct. As one candidate, now councillor stated, “the Roundhouse site is a jewel in the crown of Ocean Shores”

Each Councillor has the right to a current appraisal of property market conditions and a 2013 replacement of the old, long superseded 2001 business plan which is the basis for previous decisions to subdivide. A land subdivision requires considerable borrowings, and is a risky enterprise, especially in a time of economic uncertainty.

The community agrees that the Roundhouse site is iconic and unique and should remain in public hands. .

RAG and OSCA ask for the opportunity to manage the land under a lease arrangement, similar to other council property in the Shire, and that at long last, Council works with, rather than against the community, to present a report to Council on the public cultural community use of the Roundhouse.

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