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| MASTER PLAN DA 2023/0711 Click on all images to enlarge |
Clarence Valley Independent, 20 December 2023:
A development application DA 2023/0711 for a $6.65 million 95 lot manufactured home estate at South Grafton is currently being assessed by Clarence Valley Council and submissions from the public are invited.
The DA lodged by John Codling is for the demolition of existing buildings at 252 to 298 Rushforth Road and construction of a 95 dwelling manufactured home estate, a community building, a 25m by 10m swimming pool, children’s play area, community gardens, recreation areas and community title subdivision.
The Statement of Environmental Effects SEE, lodged with the DA states the 95 home manufactured housing estate will take up 8.57 hectares of the 11.54-hectare property, with proposed residential sites varying from 282 square metres to 450 square metres.
The Manufactured Home estate will be located on the southern and eastern portions of the property, with the northern and western areas remaining unimpacted by construction.
“The proposed large community clubhouse, centrally located at the entrance to the development, will act as an indoor and outdoor meeting place for residents of the estate and their visitors,” the SEE states.
“The proposed dwelling sites and community facilities will be set in a landscaped environment supported by recreational facilities.”......
Sounds like low income retirees heaven, doesn't it?
Until one realises that an existing wide drainage channel easement dissects the planned manufactured home estate and discharges into what appears to be marshland and creek. Which sets the mind a-wondering.
From there it is easy to discover that the entire manufactured home estate on that lot will be directly in the path of the maximum possible Clarence River flood (based on probable maximum precipitation) according to Clarence Valley Council 2022 flood modelling.
Clarence River very dark blue, 1 in 100 probability in any given year for a flood event is coloured darker blue and, the full range of a maximum probability flood coloured light blue with est. 11.5 ha DA site in dark red.
IMAGE: https://maps.clarence.nsw.gov.au/intramaps910/
In addition the "Stormwater Management Plan & Preliminary Flood Assessment" (17 October 2023) at Page 10 supports this view and adds another dimension:
2. The subject site is subject to Clarence River flooding during an ‘extreme event’. This is limited to the northeastern portion of the site (Figure 4).....
5. The entire site is subject to flooding during a Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) event (Figure 8). Depth and velocity information is not available.
6. Site inundation due to 1:100 storm event runoff from the Rushforth Reservoir (Figure 9) is similar but of a lesser extent than what is mapped as fluvial inundation (Figure 5). Nine lots are affected by shallow (<0.2m) inundation (Figure 11).
7. A Rushforth Reservoir dam break would inundated a large component of the northeastern site precinct (Figure 10). The inundation depth in the northeastern part of the site where the lots are is generally below 0.5 metres (Figure 12), but it increases to 0.8 metres along the eastern site boundary (past the lots).
The developer cannot fail to be aware that the site will experience everything from episodic, low-level nuisance flooding from the creek to a probable maximum full inundation from the river 13.6-13.7m in height potentially sending on a conservative calculation 0.6-3.8m or somewhere between 2-12 feet of rushing water though the manufactured home estate.
Bottom line is that the next time climate change throws a record breaking Clarence River flood at valley communities, South Grafton will possibly have another 190+ people to evacuate to higher ground - as is advised at Page 18 of the developer's document "Stormwater Management Plan & Preliminary Flood Assessment".
Not sounding quite as attractive now, does it?
SEE FULL DETAILS AT: https://cvc-web.t1cloud.com/T1PRDefault/WebApps/eProperty/P1/eTrack/eTrackApplicationDetails.aspx?r=CVC.P1.WEBGUEST&f=%24P1.ETR.APPDET.VIW&ApplicationId=DA2023%2f0711
