Following the 2022 floods in Tweed Shire, owners of 164 Tweed Shire homes accepted the buyback offer and 76 flood-affected houses have been approved for relocation out of the floodplain.
Tweed Mayor Chris Cherry brought a notice of motion (NoM) to the recent council meeting seeking to emulate the Lismore approach that provides a two-year window to fast-track the opportunity to relocate flood-affected properties to sites that currently do not have a dwelling entitlement.
‘What we’re trying to do is follow what Lismore has been granted, which is an exemption to the variation clause in the LEP (local environment plan) which has allowed housing to be considered on lots that don’t have a dwelling entitlement,’ explained Cr Cherry.
‘Normally that would mean that nobody can submit a development application (DA) for a house to be built on that lot, but they’ve (Lismore) received an exemption that allows housing for relocation of flood buybacks to be put onto those lots and assessed on a merit basis.
‘That is what I’m trying to see if we can gain, the same exemption for our flood victims in across Murwillumbah, Burringbar, Condong – we have them across the Shire where they’ve received buybacks but they don’t have any land to move those houses to.’
Relocation site not available
The concurrent Resilient Lands Program that has a site in Murwillumbah for relocation, however due to constraints at the site around waste water it has not been able to make it to market yet and is not available at this point to relocate flood impacted houses to.
There are approximately 400 lots of rural land without a dwelling entitlement across the Tweed Shire, some of these are lots that are residual from a previous subdivision, some are residual lands from schools or public infrastructure. However, there are many that will be impacted by constraints that can include High Flow Flood Hazard areas, Category 1 bushfire prone land, Coastal Wetlands and Rainforests, State or Regionally Significant Farmland, Steep Land, and Biodiversity Values.
Cr Cherry updated her NoM to make it similar to make it the same as the Lismore exemption rather than the more wide ranging potential for development that was originally proposed. This means that the proposal is only to relocate flood impacted dwellings not for new builds etc.
‘We’re trying to save our heritage. We’re trying to save these people’s homes,’ said Cr Cherry.
‘There is a crisis in terms of cost of construction at this time, this seems like a quick win that we might be able to do to help people who are wanting to relocate homes at this time. The other parts of [the NoM] say if a block is completely covered in vegetation or it’s in a wildlife corridor we don’t really want to consider doing it (relocating) on that block. We want to do it on blocks that are cleared, they’re flat, they’re not flood prone.’
Cr Dr Noal Firth also spoke to the motion highlighting concerns around habitat, biodiversity and the impact of domestic animals. However, she agreed to vote in favour of the motion ‘because I know that there are people who have lost their houses due to flood, and they want to stay in this area. And at the moment, until Kings Forest actually gets itself underway, which hopefully will happen soon, the opportunities are not there.’
The motion was carried with all councillors in favour.
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