In defiance of the NSW Government, the councillors are trying to ban any more caravan parks and manufactured homes on land zoned RU2 Rural Landscape.

With 35 caravan parks and manufactured home estates in Tweed Shire, Tweed Mayor Chris Cherry said “that is enough for the demand that we have.”

“Manufactured home estate houses are retailing between $900,000 and $1.1 million. You don’t own the land and still have to pay site fees forever. That is not affordable housing in anyone’s book.

At the end of the day what we want is for urban parks to be located close to infrastructure, close to those services that the people who live in them need.”

A report by the Council’s Strategic Planning and Urban Design said few of the parks and estates are used for tourism. 

“Many caravan parks are progressively being converted into boutique ‘manufactured home estates’ to a standard of design traditionally reserved to the most sought after and affluent housing estates.

“Many are legacy developments that sit within the floodplain and the most affected and displaced persons from the 2022 floods were from these sites, and there is no evidence of any new or converted caravan park that could affordably accommodate a transitioning flood affected person”.

The NSW Government has asked the Council wait until the finalisation of the state’s Growth and Housing Management Strategy.

GemLife is currently building Tweed Waters, labelling it as “Luxury over-50s living at Tweed Heads”.

The SOURCE: An operator would not want to build a land lease community unless there was the demand.