According to the Regional Australia Institute, the number of people moving to Byron Shire from the capital cities jumped 33 per cent in the 12 months to June 2021.
Institute chief executive Liz Ritchie said the pandemic triggered an exodus from capital cities to the countryside, but it also stopped people leaving the regions, squeezing an already tight rental market.
“Rental homes make up just 20 per cent of regional NSW housing stock, while in Sydney they make up 40 per cent,” Ritchie said, pointing out that for two decades, housing had not kept up with regional population growth.
Kirkwood said that during the pandemic, “everyone in the world seemed to be moving to Byron Bay for a sea change”, and that it had exacerbated an already existing crisis.
He has since bought a second property that can house 10 of his chefs, waiters, bartenders and managers, and he rents it to his employees at a below-market rate that covers his repayments.
“We’re not alone. There are many other businesses that have done the same thing,” he said. “One has a bus they’ve bought. They’re renting a house in an outlying village, and they get their staff with the bus and bring them back to town [for work] … people are doing all sorts of things to solve the problem.”
Chef Sanket Acharya arrived in Byron Bay from Sydney.
Credit:Danielle Smith
One of Kirkwood’s tenant employees, Sanket Acharya, said he was relieved to have accommodation provided when he moved to Byron Bay from Sydney to take up a chef position at Kirkwood’s restaurant.
“I’ve seen my friends and colleagues struggling for accommodation in Byron. It’s very expensive. I’ve been very lucky,” he said. “Finding accommodation in Byron is much more difficult than finding it in Sydney.”
Byron Community Center general manager Louise O’Connell said the housing crisis had been building in the shire for a while, “then COVID hit, then the flood hit, and what was a housing emergency is now a catastrophe”.
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O’Connell’s organization opened a drop-in center called Fletcher Street Cottage in April, which is run on donations from people including Chris Hemsworth and Bernard Fanning, and offers breakfast and shower and laundry services to people who need them, as well as access to social workers.
“You’re seeing a whole different demographic of people coming to us asking for help – people who have never accessed services before,” O’Connell said. “There are kids in their school uniforms coming with their parents to have breakfast. It is so bad.”
She said the short-term holiday rentals market had cut the supply of long-term homes in the area, making it harder for even professionals to find a place to live.
More than 15 per cent of dwellings in the Byron local government area were empty on census night, six percentage points higher than the state average.
The council secured approval from the state government last month to limit short-term holiday rentals to 90 nights a year in some parts of the shire and has now put the proposal out to the public for comment.
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