Over my lifetime I have lived in eight local government areas.
During my childhood years only one impinged on my consciousness, when community resistance to a proposed council measure saw parents & children armed with buckets of paste, large paintbrushes and posters, out after dark on the back of a truck deployed to festoon telegraph poles & public buildings with sentiments opposing the proposition.
It was also the first time I began to realise that local government was a point at which competing interests vied to be heard and an arena it which every interest hoped to prevail.
It was brought home to me when returning from attending a council meeting, a neighbour entered my family home exultantly crying “The mick’s have it! We won!”.
It was during those early years that I also began to learn that both state government and local council decisions about where to create new urban precincts can have unexpected consequences for families purchasing a home. In my case the lesson came with fast moving flash flooding, which sent water rushing under dwellings in a largescale housing project built on sloping former farmland land at the fringes of a city. Carving away clay and soil from foundations and making timber houses quiver like jellies on their newly exposed, vulnerable brick piers.
Over the years since then I have watched local government grow more complex and in many ways more powerful. With its elected arm frequently highly politicised and its administrative arm intent on imposing its own will on council decision making as its default position in relation to planning matters.
I have lived long enough to see more and more cities, suburbs, towns and villages expand their built footprints until they began to fill New South Wales coastal floodplains and, in the last three decades noted that this particular planning strategy has been repeatedly warned against.
I have also watched with both interest and sometimes alarm as vested interests have grown even more powerful when it came to deciding if, where and when areas on those floodplains should be turned into mile after mile of family homes just as vulnerable to the forces of nature as was that family home of my childhood. Still being built as mine was to designs and with materials which were never fully capable of withstanding severe storms, floods, wildfire or earthquake.
Right now the little town of Yamba (at the mouth of one such floodplain) is the focal point of one of those contests between residents seeking to protect the wellbeing and safety of a community and the political interests of three tiers of government aligned as they currently are within this state with the financial and commercial interests of property developers and land speculators both foreign and domestic.
Part of that contest is being played out in the matter of Valley Watch Inc v Clarence Valley Council, Case No. 2022/00290453, before the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal (Administrative and Equal Opportunity Division) in Sydney on Monday 17 October 2022 at a Case Conference (GIPA and Privacy) at which the progression of the matter through the Tribunal process will be decided.
Note: Full title of GIPA is the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 which in NSW is the vehicle under which a legally enforceable right to access most government information is exercised unless there is an overriding public interest against disclosure.
Clarence Valley Independent, 12 October 2022:
Valley Watch takes council to NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal
Eight years of frustration by local community group Valley Watch over Clarence Valley Council not releasing important Yamba floor level survey results will now be subjected to a review by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Valley Watch spokes-person Helen Tyas Tunggal said 14 years after Yamba’s existing flooding problem was identified in council’s 2008 flood study, and eight years since professional floor level surveys were done in 2014, affected residents are still unable to access the results.
“Enough is enough” Ms Tyas Tunggal said.
“14 years is too long.
“The council has an obligation to act in the best interests of residents and stop keeping this information secret.”
The 2008 Yamba Floodplain Risk Management Study FRMS identified the issue of a lack of a floor level survey, but Ms Tyas Tunggal said it took another six years to be conducted.
“Due to a lack of surveyed floor level data an assessment based on approximations,” the FRMS stated.
The approximations, Ms Tyas Tunggal said were made of the number of existing house floors that would be inundated including a 20-year flood (122 homes); a 100-year flood (1223 homes) and extreme flood (2144 homes).
“It took until 2014 for the floor level survey to be conducted,”’ Ms Tyas Tunggal said.
“(The residents were notified) as a part of the investigation work for the preparation of the Development Control Plan that will guide residential development in West Yamba, it is a requirement that floor levels of surrounding residential dwellings be ascertained,” affected residents were told by council.
“These floor levels are required to determine whether any existing dwellings are at risk from the proposed future filling of appropriately zoned parts of West Yamba to enable future residential development.”
“And yet those residents whose floors were surveyed have not been told by the Council what the results are,” Ms Tyas Tunggal said.
Valley Watch has made various attempts to clarify what has happened to the resulting documentation from the 2014 floor level survey.
As a result, the organisation has asked its solicitor to seek a review of Council’s refusal to release the information.
“We think it is only fair for residents to be told how at risk of flooding their homes are,” Ms Tyas Tunggal said.
“Council has that information and could make the information available if they wish.”
When council replied to Valley Watch’s request for information the written response stated “Premature release of the floor level data might (for instance) result in one or more sales falling through without the statutory immunity of Council being assured.”
“We do not accept that by releasing floor level survey data council will lose its statutory Immunity,” Ms Tyas Tunggal said.
“The statement however raises concerns that there is significant information contained within the survey results that residents and the public need to know.
“We are asking the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal to take an independent look.”
A particular quote in the aforementioned article is revealing to say the least:
“Premature release of the floor level data might (for instance) result in one or more sales falling through without the statutory immunity of Council being assured.”
One has to wonder why Clarence Valley Council would expose itself so blatantly, in asserting words to the effect that it believes it is perfectly proper for council to keep the full range of flood risk information from existing homeowners, as well as to actively involve itself in duping prospective homebuyers and presumably conveyancing agents acting on the buyer's behalf.
Such a coldly cruel expression of caveat emptor by an imperious Clarence Valley Council.
It was interesting to note that the article set out below also appeared in that same issue of the Clarence Valley Independent. A well-intentioned article which voices the ideal while skirting around much of the problematic reality that is local government in 21 Century Australia.
Clarence Valley Independent, 12 October 2022:
Mayoral column 3 – Community engagement and consultation
October 12, 2022 -
In late 2021, during the Council election campaign, some candidates acknowledged that the Council should do much better in informing the community on matters of importance.
I believe that a local Council that consistently engages effectively with its community is helping to safeguard local democracy while placing people at the centre of local government. Perfunctory, irregular “consultation” should be unacceptable.
Councillors have received complaints of a lack of communication and response times to your communications. We are committed to continuous improvement in this regard. If you have experienced communication issues, I encourage you to contact me or your local councillor.
The level of community engagement undertaken should always be appropriate to the nature, complexity and impact of the issue, plan, project, or strategy. Adequate time and reasonable opportunity should be provided for people to present their views to Council in an appropriate manner and format. The Council should have proper regard to the reasonable expectations of the community, to the costs and benefits of the engagement process, and to intergenerational equity.
No comments:
Post a Comment