Parks, trail stops, light industry and car parks: an ideas paper for 641 Lismore buyback properties is out, and it has already ruled out new homes

What is being asked, and by when

The council and the Authority are preparing four precinct plans, for Lismore Centre, North Lismore, East Lismore and South Lismore, covering the houses bought back after the 2022 floods. The Authority funds the work, including the consultants. The council's project page puts the buyback properties at over 70 hectares and says plainly: It is important to note that the land will not be used for new housing.

There are three ways in. An online survey, open until 11:59pm on 1 November. Four drop-in sessions with no booking: SCU Library Event Space on Thursday 15 October (5pm to 7pm), the Koori Mail on Friday 16 October (10am to noon), Norma's Kitchen at the Lismore Showground on Thursday 22 October (3pm to 5pm) and South Lismore Bowling Club on Friday 23 October (10am to noon), plus a pop-up at the Lismore Show from 15 to 17 October. And four two-hour precinct workshops on Saturdays 17 and 24 October, for which places are limited and expressions of interest close at 11:59pm on Thursday 8 October.

After that, the FAQ says, draft precinct plans come back to the community in early 2027 and The precinct plans are anticipated to be finalised by mid 2027. The paper's timeline puts a planning proposal, the formal rezoning step, in May to June 2027. On who decides, the FAQ is direct: Lismore City Council and NSW Reconstruction Authority will decide on the final precinct plans, future land uses, the required rezoning and future ownership of the buyback land informed by the Precinct Plans and community consultation.

How much land, and where

Each precinct in the paper opens with a panel giving its size, its 2021 population and its buyback count as at July 2026. Put together:

Ideas and Opportunities Paper, September 2026, precinct panels on pages 15, 25, 35 and 45 of the PDF. Totals are our addition. Precinct area is the whole precinct, not the buyback land inside it.

South Lismore holds the most, 222, more than a third of the four-precinct total. North Lismore has 180 buyback properties against 1,205 residents in 2021, the highest ratio of the four. The land is not in tidy blocks. In the paper's words, because the program is voluntary, buyback properties are often interspersed with remaining homes and privately owned land. And most of it sits in the two worst flood bands: the paper places most buyback properties located in Extreme and High Risk areas.

One number to treat with care. The FAQ that sits beside the paper gives two counts for Lismore: over 600 properties in Lismore being bought back on its first page, and Nearly 500 properties in Lismore were bought back on its third. The paper's own precinct panels add to 641, which matches the first. The FAQ also says some buybacks lie outside the four precincts, in places such as Wyrallah, and are being planned separately, so neither figure is the whole local government area by our reading of the documents. For regional scale, the Authority's progress page counts 853 buyback settlements completed across the Northern Rivers as at 31 August 2026.

The ideas, precinct by precinct

The paper lists lettered ideas for each precinct and a one-line summary of what each could become. A selection, in its own terms:

Lismore Centre. Shops, outdoor dining or commercial buildings on buyback land along Zadoc Street; sport, entertainment, event space and visitor accommodation along Magellan Street beside the sports precinct; a pocket park at Little Keen Street; open space along the river at Brunswick Street, where the paper flags extreme flood risk. One idea moves parking rather than adding it: Explore relocating car parking and other appropriate uses to buyback land to create more public open space along the riverfront. Another uses buyback properties to realign Orion Street.

North Lismore. Commercial and community uses along Terania and Bridge Streets; a new destination around Terania and Tweed Streets with visitor accommodation, entertainment, car parking and parkland; event space and parking around the Showgrounds; parkland and wetlands along the Wilsons River in the extreme-risk areas; and trail-supporting businesses for the future Rail Trail. As we reported on 5 October, the trail's unbuilt Lismore to Booyong section is unfunded.

East Lismore. Tourism and visitor accommodation along Ballina Road and the Bruxner Highway outside areas of extreme flood risk; commercial and light industrial uses on Parkes Street; creative businesses between Keen and Molesworth Streets; a wider, greener corridor along Browns Creek, the same creek whose CBD levee spillway the council's flood committee was asked on 30 September to raise; and the paper's most concrete piece of infrastructure, Explore the opportunity for a new pedestrian bridge over Ballina Road, connecting Peace Park with Keen Street.

South Lismore. New and expanding businesses in the industrial area; shops and food on Union Street near the station and the trail; parkland along the Wilsons River, Leycester Creek and Hollingworth Creek; a business buffer between the schools and heavier industry; and a demonstration idea: Use buyback land along Elliot Road to demonstrate new ways of designing industrial and commercial buildings to better respond to flooding.

In three precincts the paper also suggests that isolated buyback lots in residential streets be combined with neighbouring properties to give the remaining homes larger gardens and more space. The FAQ answers the question that raises for people still living there: No. All buybacks under the Resilient Homes Program have been voluntary. There is no intention to compulsorily acquire any homes.

The limits flood risk sets

The paper sorts the floodplain into four risk bands and sets out what each can carry. In the Extreme band it lists new residential houses, visitor accommodation, businesses and community facilities as unsuitable and says Generally no new residential, commercial, industrial or community development. In the High band it lists new residential accommodation, essential services, community facilities and businesses that accommodate large numbers of people or rely on uninterrupted operation during floods as uses that may not be suitable. Across all four bands the rule is the same: No residential dwellings will be considered on any buyback land regardless of the flood risk precinct.

That makes the visitor accommodation ideas in three precincts the ones to read most closely. East Lismore's version carries the extreme-risk exclusion in its own wording; the Centre and North versions do not. Which band a given lot sits in is shown on the paper's maps and the council's interactive map, and it is the question worth taking to a drop-in session.

Who will own it, and who pays to keep it

Under the heading What has already been decided? the paper records that buyback land will not return to residential use, and then says something the rest of the document builds on: As Council cannot own and maintain all buyback land over the long term, there may also be opportunities for some land to be utilised to support existing business activity; used by community groups and used or owned by other non-government organisations for appropriate flood-compatible uses. It also says Buyback land will not all become public open space.

Whether any of it is sold is open. The FAQ says The decision to divest (sell or gift) land to neighbours or other interested organisations will be guided by the Government Property Framework and the planning process, and on the money: This includes whether land will be sold, the value of that land, and the process of managing any funds. The project page already has a form for anyone interested in buying a vacant parcel.

Engagement with the Widjabul Wia-bal people, the native title holders, is at its start. The paper says Engagement with the Widjabul Wia-bal Gurrumbil Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC has only recently commenced, and the FAQ says an Aboriginal-owned consultancy has been engaged to seek First Nations input on land use and future management.

Our reading, and it is an opinion on the documents above: the paper is generous about uses and silent about cost. Its text contains no dollar figure for any idea, for buying, clearing or maintaining land, or for what a sale might return, although its own timeline schedules a cost benefit analysis for July to November 2026, the stage it is in now. The council says it cannot carry all of this land, and the ideas include plenty that someone has to mow, plant, light and insure after the next flood. Residents are being asked to rank parks against car parks against light industry before anyone has been shown what each costs to keep, or who keeps it. The useful thing to tell the survey may be exactly that.

What to watch

Whether the cost benefit analysis is published with the draft plans in early 2027, and what it says about who maintains the land. Whether the FAQ's two property counts are reconciled. And the planning proposal in mid 2027, the point at which ideas become zoning.

Sources

The working. AI read the documents and drafted this story, under rules people set and answer for, working from the primary sources below. How we work.

1. Lismore City Council, Have your say on the future use of buyback land (Your Say Lismore page, last updated 29 September 2026, read 7 October 2026): the four precincts, the more than 70 hectares, the statement that the land will not be used for new housing, the drop-in sessions, workshop dates and the 8 October expression-of-interest close, the 1 November close of Phase 1, draft plans in early 2027, the Lismore Show pop-up, the register of interest in purchasing land, and the Widjabul Wia-bal acknowledgement.
2. Lismore City Council and NSW Reconstruction Authority, Lismore/Dundurimbah Precinct Plans: Ideas and Opportunities Paper, September 2026 (PDF, 56 pages, downloaded and read 7 October 2026): the "already decided" passage and the council ownership and maintenance sentence (page 3), the timeline (page 4), the Widjabul Wia-bal engagement (page 5), the interspersed-land sentence (page 8), "will not all become public open space" (page 9), the flood risk table (page 14), the four precinct panels with buyback counts as at July 2026, sizes, 2021 residents and primary roles, and the lettered opportunities and ideas for each precinct.
3. NSW Reconstruction Authority, Lismore Precinct Planning, Future use of buyback land: Frequently asked questions (PDF, 5 pages, downloaded and read 7 October 2026): the two property counts on pages 1 and 3, the Authority funding the project and the consultants, the mid 2027 finalisation, the buybacks outside the four precincts, the divestment and funds answers, no compulsory acquisition, who decides, and the Aboriginal-owned consultancy.
4. NSW Reconstruction Authority, Northern Rivers: Our progress (web page, last updated 30 September 2026, read 7 October 2026): Resilient Homes Program figures as at 31 August 2026, including 853 home buyback settlements completed across the Northern Rivers.

Live in one of the four precincts, sit on the project, or read the paper's maps differently? Tell us and we will check it against the documents and log the outcome.