Nine homes sold to the NSW government owing to impacts of the 2022 Northern Rivers flood and landslides disaster in the Tweed Shire are to be auctioned next month.
The government says there has been ‘a very strong community response’ to the auction scheme so far, with 45 flood-affected properties sold to bidders at the two auctions already held.
Most of the buyers have reportedly been locals, paying between $347 and $101,000 for the houses.
There is no reserve price on the houses, meaning bidding can start and end at $1.
Successful bidders have twelve months to relocate the houses to flood-free land.
Making sense of NSW housing priorities
Minister for Recovery and Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin says the auctions help save historic homes impacted by the floods and make a small but meaningful contribution to the housing challenges we face in the Northern Rivers.
Housing challenges faced by squatters living in some of the abandoned homes are not mentioned in the announcement but The Echo has spoken to some who are on the state’s unfeasibly long social housing waitlist.
Other houses bought back by the NSW Reconstruction Authority (RA) have been controversially demolished, with authorities saying they’re unsafe to live in while protestors describe antique features and recently renovated dwellings being crushed and taken to landfill.
The RA has previously referred to a salvage scheme alongside the demolitions but at least one Lismore eye-witness has described to The Echo following a demolition truck straight to a landfill facility whereupon otherwise salvageable materials were dumped.
Green waste facilities in NSW have strict rules governing what can be included and so materials cannot simply be mulched.
The RA says it’s also firmly committed to reusing and relocating as many flood-affected homes as possible but is yet to release examples of successful relocations.
Earlier suggestions of land near the Southern Cross University in Lismore possibly being used for relocations appear to have been abandoned, as have efforts between Lismore City Council staff and the RA to include space in a recently approved estate on high ground at Goonellabah.
The NSW government has described the buyback scheme as Australia’s largest climate adaptation initiative, saying the program is helping create safer communities by removing flood-prone homes from the floodplain.
The fact that new housing estates approved for flood-prone land prior to the 2023 election of the state’s Labor government are still legally allowed to be built, albeit with stricter regulations, is also missing from bureaucratic and government discussion about the RA’s plans.
The RA is to auction nine buyback homes from Burringbar and South Murwillumbah on 12 August.
More details on the properties available for auction next month can be found at www.fnmurwillumbah.com.au/pages/real-estate/relocatable-homes.
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