‘The 2022 floods in South‑East Queensland and NSW are the costliest natural disaster for insurance costs in Australian history. As of June 2023, the ICA (Insurance Council of Australia) estimates the February‑March 2022 floods in South‑East Queensland and NSW have caused $5.87 billion in insured damages,’ according to the Australian Treasury. And that doesn’t include all those who were uninsured or the $5 billion that modelling showed the 2022 floods cost the economy.
So why are we continuing to allow developers to build on floodplains using development applications (DAs) that are ten or twenty years old and we know will cause significant future costs to our communities and governments – costs that will be in the billions of dollars and that ultimately we are paying for via our taxes and rates?
This was the question under discussion in Brunswick Heads on September 5 as concerned residents and community groups, CLAI Wallum, Friends of the Koala Inc, MPs and committee members of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Historical Development Consents in NSW – aka ‘zombie’ developments met.
Zombie developments
A key part of the discussion is how to deal with legacy, or ‘zombie’ developments and their future impacts on flooding, fire and the environment. These are DAs that have been approved and have sat idle for years with only minimal work done in the first five years that then allows the DA to remain active indefinitely into the future. That is, they can be activated and developed under the original DA that does not have to take into account current legislation and learning, like the heights of the 2022 floods, and in the cases of Gales Holding in Kingscliff and Iron Gates in Evans Head they can fill floodplains and build on them with no reference to the impact these developments will have on existing and future housing, businesses and infrastructure.
‘This scourge on coastal communities along the entire NSW coast, has been very well documented in the report “Concreting our Coast: The developer onslaught destroying our coastal villages and environment” by Greens MP Cate Faehrmann,’ Kingscliff Ratepayers and Progress Association (KRPA) explained in a submission to the inquiry.
Following the meeting KRPA President Peter Newton told The Echo that: ‘Kingscliff and other areas of the Tweed Shire remain under threat from these historic approvals on the floodplain and in ecologically sensitive areas. The association welcomed the opportunity for a full and frank dialogue on the risks we are facing and the potential for planning reforms.’
Some recommendations from those attending the roundtable included potential buybacks or land swaps for these historically-approved DAs.
‘The financial cost of recovery to communities and governments is eye-watering,’ said KRPA in their submission.
‘We need to shift the emphasis from spending on flood recovery to spending on flood prevention and mitigation. This may require billions in, for example, compensation/land swaps to acquire such historically approved land from developers, but we need to start somewhere. Governments are spending billions on each flood event – this at least would be a one-off cost. This cost cannot be met by councils (and therefore ratepayers) and needs to be addressed at the state and federal government levels.’
Don’t use it, lose it
Stricter regulations around how long a DA can remain active were also put forward with president of the Evans Head Residents for Sustainable Development Incorporated (EHRSDI), Richard Gates, saying that ‘fixed use-by dates for commencement and completion of DAs’ need to be implemented.
‘There were a number of lessons to be learned from the Iron Gates development including the need for mechanisms for informed local knowledge to be included in planning decisions that affect local people; fixed use-by dates for commencement and completion of DAs; the need for independent peer review of consultant reports; an effective body to oversee the cumulative effects of developments on local environments, community and social infrastructure including carrying capacity of the land to provide essential environmental services critical to a healthy and sustainable environment; appropriate recognition to be given to Aboriginal cultural knowledge and landscapes; and, a body to be set up to ensure that court orders are respected and enforced with heavy penalties for those who ignore them including removal of capacity to lodge further DAs,’ he said.
Ecological impacts
The impact of a 27-year-old DA in Tringa Street, Tweed that was bought and then activated by a developer highlighted how little councils can do to respond to zombie DAs that would never be approved today but have sat on council’s books. This DA would have been unlikely to be approved today but Tweed Council had no mechanism to require the developer to bring the DA up to current expected standards in relation to existing flood data or ecological expectations.
‘Regional consequences for biodiversity loss and potential flood and fire impacts were raised and a united appeal for buy-backs and contemporary assessments of the sites’ current values and risks,’ said former MP and Byron Shire Mayor Jan Barham who attended the roundtable.
‘The committee and the state government will need to find solutions to avoid the impacts or accept that poor legislation allows those consents to deliver unacceptable outcomes.’
‘One of the interesting aspects of the roundtable was how common many of the planning problems were despite diversity of participants including the perennial difficulty of local government not having sufficient resources to complete against big developers with deep pockets,’ said Mr Gates.
‘The bottom line for our community is such legacy developments, carrying historical approvals from a time when floodplain management and climate impacts were markedly different cannot be allowed to reach fruition,’ said Mr Newton.
‘Our community saw and experienced first-hand the impact of this legacy approved land during the 2022 floods and is deeply concerned of the impact should this land ever be developed.’
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