Darcy Byrne Calls Community Group Concerned About Housing Plan ‘NIMBYs’

Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne is demanding Greens MP Kobi Shetty pay back taxpayer dollars she used to fund a community housing forum he’s calling a “NIMBY campaign”.

Byrne alleges that the use of taxpayer money to print advertising material for a public community meeting was unauthorised and undisclosed, breaking parliamentary rules governing members entitlements.

“This dishonest conduct is not just a breach of legal requirements but an abandonment of the young people, renters and essential workers who are being forced out of the community they love because of the shortage of homes for them to live in,” he said. 

“We are determined to act now to fix the housing supply crisis in our community but to have the State Member acting covertly to fund a campaign to stop new homes being approved only exacerbates the crisis.

“Public money should be used to build more homes, not to fund political campaigns against building homes.”

Shetty told CityHub she was assisting residents in her electorate to organise a public meeting that would impact the Balmain Electorate, and believed it was in the remit of her parliamentary responsibilities.

“I sought clarification from parliamentary services upon becoming aware of the concern,  who advised me that I had inadvertently accessed the communications allowance for this printing. I am in the process of returning the amount, which is less than $20,” she said.

“It’s disappointing to see the Inner West mayor using this for political point scoring when the community is working to address real concerns about the lack of genuine consultation on their plan.”

More than 430 people gathered at the community forum in question, held by the by the Better Future Coalition on 27 July, where they overwhelmingly rejected Inner West Council’s misleading and poorly publicised ‘Our Fairer Future’ draft local development (LEP) plan.

They criticised the number of incentives for developers in the plan, and the Inner West Council’s plans for an additional 31,000 homes in the area.

“We really don’t need more private housing,” said organiser Rachel Evans, “we need mass, beautiful public housing to solve the housing crisis.”

Following the meeting, the Inner West Council scrambled to organise their own forum.

Community groups echo Coalition recommendations

On Thursday, Byrne rejected criticism from the forum, and said the support of community housing and welfare sectors such as Shelter NSW, the Faith Housing Alliance, and the Tenants Union of NSW proved that the Council was “on the right track” with the Fairer Future plan.

“Organisations committed to social justice recognise that delivering more homes and more affordable housing is the central challenge for our Inner West community today,” he said.

“More than that, their submissions give expert advice on how we can increase the amount of not-for-profit housing while significantly increasing housing supply overall.”

However, the Better Future Coalition argue that many of their own recommendations align with those suggested by Shelter NSW, including a higher affordable housing target, and a higher proportion of three or more bedroom dwellings.

“Engaging with peak bodies like Shelter NSW is an important part of the community consultation, but it should not be considered a replacement for meaningful, accountable engagement with Inner West residents, businesses, schools and other community members likely to be seriously affected by the Plan,” the Coalition said in a statement to City Hub.

The Coalition told City Hub that the Inner West Council’s refusal to engage community members affected by the changes in a transparent, accessible way forced them to organise their own meeting.

“The “Fairer Future” Plan relies almost entirely on private developers to deliver public benefit (not their remit) and on the demolition of well-established neighbourhoods and town centres, with complete disregard for the social and cultural fabric that connects them, whilst displacing renters (residents and businesses) of the area’s older, affordable buildings – including vulnerable community members – with no promise of them being able to remain in business or stay living in the community.

“The fact that the Mayor seems determined to vilify hundreds of his own, justifiably concerned, constituents as ‘NIMBY activist groups campaigning to prevent new homes’, while enthusiastically endorsing almost identical recommendations from affordable housing bodies raises the question of whose interests he is trying to serve.”

A vote on the Plan has been postponed to the September council meeting after more than 1221 submissions were received.