The general rule of thumb is that politics does not belong in local government. Of course, we all know that is not true, and it was proven at yesterday's Lismore City Council May meeting.

The political debate started with the discussion about the five documents that have now been approved to go on public display, that is, the draft Community Strategic Plan (CSP), Delivery Program, Operation Plan, Long Term Financial Plan, the Community Engagement Plan and the draft Fees and Charges.

The point of difference concerned the removal of the word 'affordable' when it came to describing Lismore's housing future. Instead, the word 'diverse' is used, which includes affordable housing.

The two Greens councillors, Adam Guise and Virginia Waters, and Labor's Jasmine Knight Smith supported adding a point four to the motion, which said that affordable housing is a core strategic outcome of the CSP.

Cr Knight-Smith was concerned it doesn't reflect what the community wanted, while Cr Waters said, "It is critical for our community housing providers, as they rely on the CSP and other council documents to support their funding and advocacy efforts," and Cr Guise said the work was done in secret workshops.

This point was challenged by Cr Andrew Gordon, who said it was covered in two council workshops and asked whether Cr Guise attended those meetings. Cr Guise replied that if they happened during the day, then he likely didn't attend because he works. Cr Rob said he goes to every briefing and workshop, "Sometimes I forget what Cr Guise looks like because he's never there."

Cr Knight-Smith's motion was defeated 4/7 with Crs Dalton-Earls, Knight-Smith, Guise and Waters voting for.

Cr Gianpiero Battista had put a foreshadowed motion forward as printed, and then added his own point 4, where all references to affordable housing were replaced with diverse housing where practical.

Cr Battista said he was surprised somebody from the Labor party moved the previous motion about affordable housing because he expected it from The Greens. He also mentioned that social housing should have replaced affordable housing, and that social housing was the responsibility of the state government.

Cr Dalton-Earls mentioned that the councillors who did not attend the workshops missed out on a lot of context. "If you're not attending those briefings, which often happen in the evening, then you're coming into a council chamber and talking about things that were already discussed at the briefing. And I think that's not always the best scenario, particularly when it's such an involved and long document."

Cr Waters said she felt it was a little 'patronising' about whether councillors attended workshops or not. "I think it's setting up a precedent of actually not knowing how we may all share information with each other, and that people are being vilified, basically, for that."

Cr Waters then gave a definition of affordable housing: "Affordable housing refers to housing that is accessible to households with low to moderate incomes to be typically defined as housing where the cost does not exceed a certain percentage of the household gross income, often 30%."

The counterargument was around supply, or the lack of it, which puts so many residents in the unaffordable basket through higher prices.

Mayor Steve Krieg said Lismore, as a regional city, is the only one on the list of regional cities in NSW that has not grown recently.

"In fact, you could almost say we've experienced negative growth, while our cousins, the Tamworths of the world, only 15 years ago were a population of 43,000 and now are 60,000 with goals to hit 100 (thousand) by 2060. Goulburn, Orange, Wagga, Dubbo, all experiencing growth."

Mayor Krieg went on to say that Lismore has been focused on social housing, with demands for developers to give up 10% of their potential developments to the Affordable Housing Contribution Schemes.

"If you were wanting to open 100 blocks of land in Lismore, but you can only sell 90 of them, where would you go? Would you come to Lismore and try and do business in Lismore, or would you go to another regional centre who welcome and embrace the diversity and the opportunity."

The message from the Krieg team was that diverse housing includes affordable housing, which includes granny flats, apartments, rural residential subdivisions and residential.

Cr Knight-Smith said she was 'appalled' that affordable housing has been removed, "It makes me sad," she said. While Cr Rob said that he was appalled at the Federal Labor Party for bringing in immigration and creating a shortage of 100,000 homes.

Cr Battista said he refers to Lismore as the lost opportunity town and that he hasn't seen a policy from The Greens or Labor in the last four months about affordable housing. "What are you proposing? Tell me. If it's smart, if it's intelligent, we'll accept it."

Cr Battista went on to say that in the past 12 to 14 years that nothing has been done.

"We lost opportunity left, right and centre, and this town has gone backwards by miles, and we need to bring it back, to go forward."

This motion was voted for 9/2 with Crs Krieg, Hall, Dalton-Earls, Bing, Gordon, Knight-Smith, Jensen, Rob and Battista voting for and Crs Guise and Waters against.

More politics raised its head when Cr Waters raised a motion regarding the Living Lab and its research findings into timber recovery and reuse, particularly the practical experience of deconstructing two properties in North Lismore.

The motion was to note the research, and in Point 2, which the majority of councillors agreed with, acknowledge the three key recommendations to support a robust circular timber and reuse system through the development of deconstruction guidelines, the establishment of a circular recovery facility to store, process and support the reuse of salvaged materials and the development of a value assessment framework to accurately compare the benefits of deconstruction and material recovery versus traditional demolition.

Point 3 was where the politics came into play when Cr Waters asked councillors to write a letter to the relevant NSW Ministers and the NSWRA to seek a temporary pause on the demolition of flood-affected homes, as one of four points.

The points of view went according to party lines, with Cr Waters saying it is devastating to watch the demolition of buyback homes and Cr Battista saying that the Greens had actively supported and encouraged the occupation of undemolished houses.

"This poses a risk of having people in flood-affected areas living there when they shouldn't be. The reason why those houses were bought back, and Cr Waters and Cr Guise benefited from the buyback, was because it was deemed to be very unsafe to live in a flood-affected area."

Cr Guise then spoke about The Greens being "the only party that's actually standing up and speaking out on the housing crisis and the ecological crisis." He pointed out that not all buyback houses are high-risk, dilapidated or ruined.

Cr Dalton-Earls then asked Cr Guise a question about whether some people should not have taken the buyback and rented it out cheaply to people in a housing crisis.

Cr Guise thanked Cr Dalton-Earls for the question and acknowledged he had given him another five minutes to reiterate his previous points. At one point during these five minutes, councillors got up and left the chamber, leaving only three in their seats, meaning there was not a quorum in the chamber should a vote be required.

However, they came back for the vote, which was lost 3/6, with Crs Guise, Waters and Knight-Smith voting for and Crs Dalton-Earls, Battista, Rob, Bing, Jensen and Krieg voting against, with Cr Hall and Gordon out of the chamber.

Cr Battista's foreshadowed motion, removing Point 3, was more of the same discussion points and was passed with Crs Bing, Jensen, Dalton-Earls, Knight-Smith, and Battista voting for and Crs Waters, Guise, Rob and Krieg against.

Council meetings are nothing but predictable for the more controversial motions that are tabled. It just depends on each councillor's view of what is good for Lismore.