Six months ago the Chief Judge of the Land & Environment Court (L&EC) approved a 121 lot development at the controversial greenfields Iron Gates development at Evans Head.
The approval requires the building of a ‘Shelter-in-Place’ (SIP) facility to accommodate future local residents in the event of flood and fire. Yet the recent draft State Planning Policy on SIP for flash flooding, put out for public comment by the NSW government, clearly states that ‘shelter-in-place for greenfield development is not supported’ (page 4, item 4).
The idea of a SIP was put forward by the chair of the Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP) on 30 August, 2022 public hearing at Evans Head as a novel solution to the fire and flood problems of the Iron Gates site.
This floodplain land is continuous with the Iron Gates property and adjacent wetlands that run in to the Evans River. Photo supplied
‘It was the first the public had heard of it,’ said a spokesperson for Evans Head Residents for Sustainable Development Inc (EHRSD).
The concept was raised in the NRPP’s refusal to approve a residential development on the site.
‘On the one hand the NRPP was telling the public it was refusing the development application (DA) while on the other it was recommending what the developer needed to do to get the development across the line. That advice included the SIP,’ said the EHRSD spokesperson.
The NRPP’s SIP recommendation was subsequently picked up in the appeals process in the L&EC by the developer and formed a significant part of the 31 July, 2024 L&EC judgement in approving the DA.
Draft SIP – not for greenfield sites
At the time there was no state government policy on SIP and it wasn’t until early 2024 that a draft SIP policy was put out for public comment.
Evans Head Residents for Sustainable Development Inc. said today that it ‘had been pursuing the SIP matter since it was first raised in 2022 by the NRPP and subsequently with NSW Planning.
‘We asked NSW Planning for a copy of the public submissions so we could see what the rest of the community and public agencies had to say about SIP, but they declined to provide access to them. This was very disappointing as we thought some of that information might have been critical in providing evidence in the L&EC about its proposed use at the Iron Gates,’ said the EHRSD spokesperson.
‘It turns out we were correct in assuming it might have been useful as a SIP for flash flooding document has recently been released by NSW Planning which states unequivocally that “shelter-in-place for greenfield development is not supported”.
‘Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this NSW SIP document is that it contains many matters which are the responsibility of Richmond Valley Council (RVC) yet the RVC failed to take these matters up in the L&EC case even though it has important roles in emergency management. The RVC has first hand experience of the inadequacy of its capacity to manage both flood and fire, particularly in areas such as Evans Head where locals were primarily left to their own devices to manage in the 2022 floods.
‘The problem is made worse by the fact that the information sources on which it and the L&EC have been basing their decisions are not only inadequate but fail to take account of detailed information critical to flooding,’ said the spokesperson.
‘It is interesting to note that land to the south and west of the State Heritage Listed Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome once slated for future residential development was taken off the list by RVC during the L&EC case because of flood risk, yet it is in the same floodplain as the Iron Gates development? There are some interesting questions to be answered here by RVC and the state government in their future planning documents cited by the L&EC.’
‘There is little doubt that the Iron Gates property has many problems which may explain why it appears that the property did not sell by way of expression-of-interest when it was put on the market with an approved DA shortly after the L&EC approval, and now some six months later is still for sale via Newpoint Advisory under the listed address of “Evans Head Development Site (NSW) 240 Iron Gates Drive, Evans Head, NSW 2473”.
‘There is no mention of Goldcoral Pty Ltd [who previously owned the site and failed to do over two-million dollars of site restoration detailed in a previous L&EC decision] in the property description and there was no mention of the L&EC case.’
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