The NSW coast is in for a ‘right rogering’ should the state government have its way and implement new coastal plans and policies, according to Dr Richard Gates from the Evans Head Residents for Sustainable Development group.
Dr Gates said the new planning instruments would suit big developers and give lots of discretionary legislative ‘wiggle room’ for local and state governments to do as they please with the coast.
‘If this stuff goes through you can expect a bulldozer in your backyard anytime soon and high density development,’ he said.
‘We are on our way to a new Gold Coast. I have already seen plans for major developments which are being held back until the new legislation goes through.’
Consultation on the draft Coastal Management State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) and draft maps of the coastal management areas that make up the coastal zone closes on 20 January 2017 (for more detail see: http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/CoastalReform ).
The community has an opportunity to have its say at: [email protected]
The new Coastal Management Act 2016, which is contingent on the mapping and other coastal planning instruments, was passed by Parliament on 31 May 2016 and will become operational following consultation on the draft Coastal Management SEPP government sources claim.
The new suite of instruments tears up former NSW Coastal Policy and replaces three State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs) with one.
Dr Gates said the problem was that the environmental maps on which the new instruments were based were not complete, do not exist, or are based on material that was defective when it was used back in the 1980s.
‘For example the mapping and protection for SEPP 14 wetlands is not a significant improvement on the last mapping which was defective,’ he said.
‘The current mapping uses out-of- date scientific methods from the 1980s with no ‘on ground’ verification of map against actual wetland. The method currently being used by the government completely disregards industry standards for vegetation and wetland mapping.
Dr Gates said the coastal maps currently on exhibition were not consistent with the mapping of mangrove and saltmarsh by the department of primary industries.
‘That department used up-to- date methods and extensive on-ground validation to produce highly accurate maps of these wetland communities along the full NSW coastline. Why can’t NSW Planning and the Office and Environment and Heritage get their act together and produce maps for the new planning instruments which are up to date and reflect ‘best practice’?’
‘Further problems include inconsistencies in the inclusion or exclusion of waterbodies and mudflats in the maps provided for comment. The maps are a disgrace.
‘There is also NO definition of what constitutes a wetland. This gives major wiggle room for the department of planning (DOPE) to deem in an ad hoc fashion what is and what isn’t to be included as a coastal-significant wetland and could well be used by developers to obtain approvals for inappropriate development in sensitive coastal areas.
‘There is also no evidence that DOPE has addressed the significant limitations of the original mapping and mapping methodology including the exclusion of Eucalypt dominated wetlands and wet heath communities.’
Dr Gates went on to say that the whole coastal planning process is fatally flawed. DOPE has not publicly released details of the methods and data used to map wetlands so that they can be objectively reviewed by the public and independently reviewed by scientist with expertise in the field.
In addition the onus has been placed on local councils to identify map errors and to confirm boundaries.
Dr Gates said that this is not appropriate as councils have limited resources and/or the scientific expertise required to properly review the methods and resulting spatial data sets notwithstanding the promise of money from the DOPE minister Stokes over the next five years. He said you only had to look at the performance of his own local government area Richmond Valley Council to know that it was not up to the task.
Dr Gates said it seemed passing strange that the government should pass legislation on coastal planning in the absence of companion mapping and related policy which informs the planning process.
‘This is more than reminiscent of the Frank Sartor era when the exact same thing happened. Sartor rushed through a Far North Coast Regional Strategy (2006) without the contingent Regional Conservation Plan and related infrastructure plan. The state government starved the department responsible for producing the environment plans of promised funds and created defective and ill-informed and incomplete plans. The whole process was a disaster as is the current process for coastal planning from the State government. This is Frank Sartor II.
‘There is great deal of haste to push this all through which more than suggests that the State government is captive of the developer lobby at the expense of the local environment and folks who already live here.’
Dr Gates said his group encourages the public to write to the State government even though some of the issues appear to be technical: [email protected] The ‘devil is always in the detail’ and this is no exception. And the environment is the loser.
Local residents should not only object to the current defective planning process which waters down coastal protection but request that DOPE:
- make available the methods statement they’ve used in their mapping so that the public and scientific community can properly assess the quality of the mapping
- demonstrates that the mapping method is consistent with industry ‘best practice’ standards including the use of field validation for all maps
- makes public the results of its full accuracy assessment and provides a clear statement of accuracy (how accurate and precise are the boundaries)
- demonstrates that the mapping method makes use of the best available science and data sets to determine wetland boundaries. This should include a. the alignment of a wetland definition and methods with the NSW Plant Community Type Vegetation Classification system, b. related tools for on-ground determination of wetland boundaries, and c. industry ‘best practice’ mapping techniques with high resolution spatial data sets which are already available
- demonstrates that the mapping is consistent with NSW Wetland Policy Definition of a wetland/ and or the RAMSAR definition of a wetland or even just provide a clear definition of wetland that has been endorsed by policy and science experts and
- demonstrates that the mapping includes and protects wetlands that were excluded in the earlier mapping including Eucalypt-dominated wetlands, wet heath, and the more recently identified NSW Endangered Ecological Communities consistent with the NSW Wetland Policy and RAMSAR definition of wetlands including a. Swamp Sclerophyll Forest on Coastal Floodplains and b. additional areas of Coastal Saltmarsh in the NSW North Coast not identified in the earlier mapping.
Dr Gates said there were good examples of how bad mapping and poor definitions of what constituted wetlands had led to failure of prosecution of illegal clearing of SEPP 14 wetlands in the Richmond Valley Council area. Developers are well aware of the loopholes in the old legislation and the state government seems determined to make sure those loopholes continue so they can give their developer mates a leg-up.
Dr Gates called on the statement government to refrain from implementation of the new coastal management legislation until full and proper mapping of SEPP 14 Wetlands and SEPP 26 Littoral Rainforest was complete and to desist from watering down existing coastal protection policy.
He also called on the government to retract its false promise that the watering down of coastal protection would take the pressure for development off the coastal fringe, a concept that was clearly nonsense. How dumb do they think we are?
The current coastal planning process is a defining moment in our history. If we don’t speak up and let our local members know what we think we will have unprecedented development of the coast that our grandkids won’t thank us for.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
