'Don't be the Gold Coast': Northern NSW wrestles with its future identity

Marked by an ageing population and with a determination “not to be the Gold Coast”, the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales has found itself with an affordability problem, housing shortages, soaring rents and something of an identity crisis.

Defined by the serpentine routes of the Clarence, Richmond and Tweed rivers, the Northern Rivers encompasses 300,000 residents and almost 30,000 businesses in the local government areas.

The largest regional centres, Tweed Heads, Ballina and Grafton, have seen property prices shoot up appreciably since mid-2019. Lismore’s market has been more complicated.

In that eventful five-year period, which included Covid and floods, house and unit prices have shot up.

House values in Tweed Heads have almost doubled in that time, rising from a median value of around $600,000 to $1.1 million today.

Those seeking more affordable homes have also had to content with sharp price hikes.

In Ballina, units have gone from $450,000 to $650,000 in those five years. Grafton’s house price has climbed from $290,000 to $450,000 and units went from a very affordable $205,000 to more challenging $405,000.

Inland from Ballina, Lismore’s property market was defined by the biggest flood in modern Australian history that inundated the town in late February 2022.

House prices there were following the same trajectory as its Northern Rivers neighbours when they leapt from $324,000 to $582,000 from 2019.

But as the flood waters peaked, the property market sank. Prices slipped right back to today’s median house price of $384,500, although the prices have levelled out and are showing signs of beginning another incline.

With the rising property prices has come a demographic drama.

Younger buyers are being squeezed out of the market as older downsizers and tree- and sea-change interstate migrants descend on the region’s acclaimed lifestyle benefits.

At the recent Northern Rivers Housing Forum held in Kingscliff, acclaimed demographer Bernard Salt AM, and Gary White, former Chief Planner for the Queensland NSW state governments and now Chief Planner at Solve Property Group, addressed some of the biggest issues confronting the region.

Addressing supply issues and delivering the associated infrastructure is a national problem but one more acute in the Northern Rivers, according to Mr White.

“The dominant plan shaping story for northern NSW has been not wanting to be like the Gold Coast, and this philosophy has been used to justify policies of no growth, no change, no to everything – all promoted as representing planning success,” he said.

He said that the core housing crisis issue in northern NSW is not going away and will only become an increasingly complex problem to address.

“The current approach is going to shrink opportunity horizons for the region to respond to a severe housing crisis.

“In a rapidly changing world, failure to contextualise what development success can be, is strategically flawed.

“This region is already experiencing relentless change and increasingly might have a future not necessarily of its choosing without well-grounded strategic thinking.”

He cited the exclusion of certain age groups from being able to consider living in northern NSW – due to severe lack of housing choices and high costs - as a case in point.

“It is a consequence of the relentless pressure of a new world, and a failure in the culture of planning leadership and attitude to genuinely deal with this planning challenge.”

Mr Salt, of The Demographics Group, said the region can learn from but does not need to emulate the Gold Coast, and needed more social and affordable housing.

The fastest growing occupation by triple the second-placed job is aged and disabled carers. Other occupations not known for their high incomes also fill out the top ten, including general clerks, café workers and education aides.

This underlined the need for more affordable housing options in the area.

“Australians allocate wealth and prosperity to lifestyle property in warm climate locations.

“The Gold Coast evolved 50 years ago as a retirement destination and now it’s time to review this way of life (as it applies to the Northern Rivers).”

The Gold Coast offered a way of life that appealed to traditional coastal retirees.

“Northern Rivers in-shifters want amenity, opportunity like skills and work, and community promoted by low-rise residential development.”

“The region can accommodate moderately scaled new developments where appropriate but also attract essential workers via affordable and social housing.”

State boundaries blurred

Northern NSW has a close relationship with Southeast Queensland, connected by highway upgrades to Queensland and inter regionally to other parts of NSW.

Upgrading of the Gold Coast International and domestic airport is connecting northern NSW to the rest of Australia and other parts of the world.

Mr White said infrastructure and common economic and social connections have superseded the geopolitical boundary coordinates as the shapers of the community and the interface area between northern NSW and Queensland.

“The nature of the new households and population growth in Byron Bay, Ballina and Tweed are not the same, and are influenced by their connectivity to other parts of NSW, Australia and the world.

“Northern New South Wales has an opportunity to lead its planning in a way which acknowledges change but tells its own regional story, led by a vision.

“With visionary planning and leadership, the Northern Rivers has an opportunity to demonstrate a model for development, and addressing employment pressures, cost of living and one of the most severe housing crisis in Australia.”