Then Director Environment & Planning at Maclean Shire Council & now town planning consultant engaged by Kahuna No 1, Rob Donges, on the subject of the West Yamba Urban Release Area, in The Sydney Morning Herald, “Coming to this swamp – suburbia”, 19 March 2007
The Daily Examiner online masthead in use by The Daily Telegraph, 18 June 2024:
Developers have failed to convince an independent planning panel to give the go-ahead for a controversial multimillion dollar development for 248 residential lots in Yamba.
In making their assessments for the flood prone site on Miles St, the panel “considered the proposal through a risk based lens”.
The Northern Regional Planning Panel, an independent planning panel governing regionally significant development applications, denied the application for the controversial project from the developers, Kahuna 1, on Monday.
In denying the application, the panel cited flood mitigation as a major issue, including the additional fill required to develop the lot, the site being in “a high-risk flood catchment” and community concern and anxiety about the project including flooding issues, insurance costs and isolation from flooding.
The panel received a total of 57 unique submissions objecting to the development.
The panel was also not satisfied that an adequate Acid Sulphate Soils Management Plan for the development had been supplied to the Clarence Valley Council.
The determination panel was not unanimous in refusing the application, however, with three voting against the development they outvoted Penny Holloway who voted against the decision.
Members of the community from Clarence Valley to Yamba, have reacted expressing relief and hope for the future.
Clarence Valley Council Councillor Greg Clancy, who addressed the planning panel as an individual, told The Northern Star the outcome was “a well reasoned decision”.
“I’m hopeful that this is the beginning of the end of flood plain development,” he said.
Medical issues, contamination and road openings
A member of Yamba Community Action Network, Ms Helen Tyas Tunggal, also expressed the panel’s decision was a sign of the tide turning for development plans on flood plains.
“What’s happened yesterday is history making,” she said.
“The panel have actually listened to the evidence given by the residents of Grevillea Waters, the people that are living right next door to where the development is proposed, who were cut off in the floods last year, and they’re all over, 55 a lot of them don’t drive and a lot of them need medical help.”
It is noted that the Kahuna No. 1 Pty Ltd Miles Street subdivision application was submitted to the Northern Regional Planning Panel with a Clarence Valley Council recommendation for "Approval", subject to the draft conditions of consent. Gordon Merchant as sole director & owner of this registered corporation may on that basis feel encouraged to challenge the regional panel's decision or submit yet another development application on the land in question.
Whilst ever Lot 46 and 47 DP 751395 (52-54 Miles Street Yamba NSW) retain a residential zone status nothing is resolved with any finality.
BACKGROUND
The Sydney Morning Herald ,19 March 2007:
FOR 250 kilometres, the Clarence River snakes through northern NSW before it meets the coast at Yamba.
There, during heavy rain and high tide, the estuary spills its briny current over a huge flood plain just west of the town. The 340 or so hectares of salt marsh, melaleuca forest and mangrove swamp act like a giant sieve, filtering the floodwaters as they make their way into Lake Wooloweyah to the south.
Now though, the Clarence Valley Council is one vote away from rezoning the West Yamba flood plain and turning it into a busy residential area.
In a monumental decision, the council has foreshadowed dumping 270,000 truck loads of fill on the area to raise it high enough to make it habitable....
But green groups say the proposal, first mooted in 1995, will put Yamba at risk from rising sea levels, and represents a dramatic threat to the area's sensitive wetland ecology.
And even the proposal's architect, the council's environment and planning director, Rob Donges, acknowledges it is out of step with today's planning regime.
"There are acknowledged problems there. It is flood-prone, low-lying land with a high water table," he said. "We have never hidden the fact that if we were to start the process of West Yamba today there would be doubts as to whether council would proceed."
The council has not yet received the findings of a flood risk management plan, commissioned to examine the effects of altering the area's natural drainage corridors, but Mr Donges has recommended the draft local environment plan go ahead anyway.
He insists the wheel has turned too far to stop now.
"It has a long history and commitments [have been] made by the council.".....
The original 127ha West Yamba Urban Release Area (WYURA) sits on a 690ha natural flood storage plain.
This was an established fact in the early 1990s when urban settlement of this area was first mooted. It was still an established fact in 1995 when the local council adopted its Land Use Strategy.
It remained an established fact when WYURA first came into effect in 2010 with amendments to the Maclean LEP 2001 allowing the amalgamated Clarence Valley Council to house between 2,000-2,500 people on flood liable land within a reduced 121ha urban release area.
It continued as an established fact in 2015 when Clarence Valley Council confirmed its ongoing intention to allow more dwellings per hectare via manufactured housing estates and therefore more people to be settled on this floodplain within the larger Lower Clarence River floodplain.
Something then Clarence Valley Mayor and now current NSW Nationals MLA for Clarence Richie Williamson called "good news for local development". Going on to say; "There's between 950 to 1000 lots and other land owners in the area will be moving forward with their developments. It's a massive development."
It was definitely an established fact in the years from 2015 to May 2023, during which Clarence Valley Council received at least 9 large scale and 2 small scale subdivision applications on this flood liable land.
The proposed layout of the 52-54 Miles St, Yamba subdivision within the contentious West Yamba Urban Release Area in November 2023, then comprising 277 low-density residential lots, 1 medium density residential lot, a commercial development, drainage reserves and an open space area.
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| IMAGE: Clarence Valley Independent, 22.11.23 |
This is the second reiteration of the Kahuna No. 1 Pty Ltd attempt to overdevelop this flood prone land, a 287 lot DA Sub 2023/0001 resubmitted as a 284 lot subdivision in December 2022 (comprising 277 low density residential lots, 1 medium density residential development lot, 1 commercial development lot, 1 low density development lot, 3 drainage reserve lots, 1 open space reserve lot) refused by Northern Regional Planning Panel on 17 June 2024.
The first attempt being a 310-lot subdivision application withdrawn by the Kahuna No. 1 in September 2022, before it was set to be determined by the Northern Regional Planning Panel.
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