A Twitter thread on the subject of a NSW local government council which since its first sitting in 2022 has beggared belief.....
via Twitter account @worldzonfire
Showing posts with label local government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local government. Show all posts
Saturday 12 November 2022
Tuesday 25 October 2022
STATE OF PLAY NSW 2022: In a changing climate is your local council and the regional planning panel in your area really taking into consideration all state policies, acts & regulations applicable to flooding?
In a changing climate whose effects and negative impacts have been driven home to NSW communities since the mega bushfires of 2019 and the increasingly heavy rainfall events across the state, there is a need for communities to ensure their wellbeing and safety is paramount in the minds of all those making policy and/or planning decisions concerning the local government areas and regions in which they live.
The widespread and catastrophic flooding to date in 2022 highlighting the need to ask this particular question.
Is my local council and, the NSW regional planning panel in my area which has authority to consent to state significant and high dollar value development applications, really obeying all the planning instructions that have been put in place since 2020?
In July 2021, the NSW Government updated its guidance to councils on considering flooding in land-use planning.
Set out below is the "Flood prone land package" concerned residents, ratepayers and community groups can use as part of their own checklists when trying to ensure that proposed land releases and large-scale development applications have been genuinely assessed against growing flood risks.
Sunday 16 October 2022
Valley Watch Inc takes Clarence Valley Council to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal seeking an honest answer as to the exact number of Yamba dwellings identified as having floor levels below modelled flood inundation heights
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.
Friday 26 August 2022
It’s time. Time that at federal, state and local government level all elected or appointed officials, all public servants and council administrations turned to face what the phrase “climate crisis” actually means in macro and micro terms to coastal populations
It’s time. Time that at federal, state and local government level all elected and appointed officials, all public servants and council administrations really accepted that global warming and climate change is real and is happening right now.
To turn and face what the phrase “climate crisis” actually means in macro and micro terms.
Everyone needs to recognise that in 2022 science knows more that it did in the years 1990, 2000, 2010.
What was once thought the degree of global warming that the earth could tolerate (5°C above pre-industrial levels) is now in doubt and the tipping points causing ‘large-scale discontinuities’ are thought to have the potential to occur at as low as 1 and 2 °C – some of which have already occurred.
Australia’s climate has warmed on average by 1.44 ± 0.24 °C since national records began in 1910 leading to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events. With most of this warming occurring since the 1950s.
According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in 2020 a number of factors caused by a warming Australia can be identified;
Oceans around Australia are acidifying and have warmed by around 1 °C since 1910, contributing to longer and more frequent marine heatwaves.
Sea levels are rising around Australia, including more frequent extremes, that are increasing the risk of inundation and damage to coastal infrastructure and communities.
There has been a decline of around 16 per cent in April to October rainfall in the southwest of Australia since 1970. Across the same region May–July rainfall has seen the largest decrease, by around 20 per cent since 1970.
In the southeast of Australia there has been a decline of around 12 per cent in April to October rainfall since the late 1990s.
There has been a decrease in streamflow at the majority of streamflow gauges across southern Australia since 1975.
Rainfall and streamflow have increased across parts of northern Australia since the 1970s.
There has been an increase in extreme fire weather, and in the length of the fire season, across large parts of the country since the 1950s, especially in southern Australia.
There has been a decrease in the number of tropical cyclones observed in the Australian region since 1982.
Again according to BOM, by 2021 the national mean temperature was 0.56 °C warmer than the 1961–1990 average.
In other words, the continent continues to warm and our weather is changing across all seasons of the year and catastrophic weather events are either becoming more frequent or more intense.
The Climate Council in its UNINSURABLE NATION: AUSTRALIA’S MOST CLIMATE-VULNERABLE PLACES, 3 May 2022 report states:
Worsening extreme weather means increased costs of maintenance, repair and replacement to properties – our homes, workplaces and commercial buildings. As the risk of being affected by extreme weather events increases, insurers will raise premiums to cover the increased cost of claims and reinsurance.
Insurance will become increasingly unaffordable or unavailable in large parts of Australia due to worsening extreme weather…..
Across Australia approximately 520,940 properties, or one in every 25, will be ‘high risk’, having annual damage costs from extreme weather and climate change that make them effectively uninsurable by 2030. In addition, 9% of properties (1 in 11) will reach the ‘medium risk’ classification by 2030, with annual damage costs that equate to 0.2-1% of the property replacement cost. These properties are at risk of becoming underinsured….
Climate change affects all Australians, but some federal electorates face far greater risks than others.
The top 10 most at-risk federal electorates by 2030 are:
– 1. Nicholls (Vic)
– 2. Richmond (NSW)
– 3. Maranoa (QLD)
– 4. Moncrieff (QLD),
– 5. Wright (QLD),
– 6. Brisbane (QLD),
– 7. Griffith (QLD),
– 8. Indi (Vic)
– 9. Page (NSW) and
– 10. Hindmarsh (SA).
In these at-risk electorates, 15% of properties (165,646) or around one in every seven properties will be uninsurable this decade….
The percentage of properties that will be uninsurable by 2030 in each state and territory is 6.5% in Queensland; 3.3% in NSW; 3.2% in South Australia; 2.6% in Victoria; 2.5% in the Northern Territory; 2.4% in Western Australia; 2% in Tasmania and 1.3% in the ACT.
People living in the NSW Northern Rivers Region’s seven local government areas will recognise that both of their federal electorates are on the “Top 10 most at-risk” list.
In the Page electorate this refers to Parts of Ballina, Lismore, Richmond Valley, Clarence Valley, with a combined total of 103,657 properties at levels of risk ranging from medium to high. With 5.4% of properties at high risk to riverine flooding, 0.4% of properties at high risk to surface water flooding and 5.3% of properties at high risk to bushfire.
While in the Richmond electorate this refers to Tweed, Byron, Ballina, with a combined total of 106,445 properties at levels of risk ranging from medium to high risk. With 14% of properties being at at high risk to riverine flooding, 0.4% of properties at high risk to surface water flooding and 5.2% of properties at high risk to bushfire.
The insurance, banking and real estate industries have noticed these statistics for years and now speak in terms of coastal zone properties in danger of becoming uninsurable, sited on land that will no longer have a monetary value.
One co-author of the Climate Council report has advised home owners and buyers to have a deep understanding of the local hazards and to acquire a property-specific report on their risk.
Three years after the first U.N. assessment report containing predictions of global warming and climatic impacts, the NSW Government protected itself and local councils against being held accountable for future deficiencies in decision making with regard to urban and infrastructure planning by establishing a new the Local Government Act in 1993.
This Act divested local councils of any and all responsibility by a presumption that local government in all things acts in good faith unless proven otherwise and, local government across the state slowly began to apply a superficial wash of climate change mention in policies and sometimes even planning documents.
Safe in the knowledge, that when considering actual development applications for both large and small land subdivision by predominately professional incorporated property developers, councils In The Chamber, council executives, administrations and all employees had a “Get out of Jail Free” card. Because after all it’s just a game of Monopoly, innit?
This attitude is what drives Clarence Valley Council and a number of property developers with land in Yamba. Who after decades of poring over maps of West Yamba together have increasingly been making decisions about Yamba township with little or no regard for either the wellbeing or concerns of residents and ratepayers.
It’s reached the risible stage in relation to that land zoned residential, accessed via Carrs Drive. Where a long promised Master Plan for the entire urban land release was not proceeded with and its need later denied.
When land filling resulted in problems on surrounding properties becoming very evident, Council administration was careful to go through a very limited form of cursory community consultation designed not to have a binding outcome and, rather conveniently is now only offering a West Yamba Urban Release Area information page on Council’s website and a printed quarterly update on development progress previously mutually agreed to by property developers and Council.
A move which offers no binding certainty on population density, lot numbers or sizes and still treats land filling on an ad hoc basis.
The lack of any real consideration of climate change impacts is appalling and mirrored in other large subdivisions such as those in Orion Drive, Park Ave and Golding Street.
The video at https://www.keepyambacountry.com/copy-of-more-information demonstrates just how poorly thought through was the approx. 2.8 AHD landfill and drainage at the Park Ave lot which has raised an est. 6.65ha of land above the ground level of a significant number of adjoining and adjacent long established and occupied residential properties.
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| Screenshot taken from video "IN-DEPTH DETAILS OF THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT on the Keep Yamba Country website, 2022 |
Similar scenarios are being played out in other Northern Rivers local government areas. Developers are not stupid. They know that now climate change is not just an abstract idea but something that can be seen and experienced they only have a finite time to offload their coastal zone subdivisions onto unsuspecting residential lot purchasers – before the next catastrophic flood or bushfire devastates a town/area considered to be a desirable place to live and wipes out the urge to buy land there.
BACKGROUND
Excerpts from Local Government Act 1993 as of 16 July 2022:
731 Liability of councillors, employees and other persons
A matter or thing done by the Minister, the Departmental Chief Executive, a council, a councillor, a member of a committee of the council or an employee of the council or any person acting under the direction of the Minister, the Departmental Chief Executive, the council or a committee of the council does not, if the matter or thing was done in good faith for the purpose of executing this or any other Act, and for and on behalf of the Minister, the Departmental Chief Executive, the council or a committee of the council, subject a councillor, a member, an employee or a person so acting personally to any action, liability, claim or demand.
733 Exemption from liability—flood liable land, land subject to risk of bush fire and land in coastal zone
(1) A council does not incur any liability in respect of—
(a) any advice furnished in good faith by the council relating to the likelihood of any land being flooded or the nature or extent of any such flooding, or
(b) anything done or omitted to be done in good faith by the council in so far as it relates to the likelihood of land being flooded or the nature or extent of any such flooding.
(2) A council does not incur any liability in respect of—
(a) any advice furnished in good faith by the council relating to the likelihood of any land in the coastal zone being affected by a coastline hazard (as described in the coastal management manual under the Coastal Management Act 2016) or the nature or extent of any such hazard, or
(b) anything done or omitted to be done in good faith by the council in so far as it relates to the likelihood of land being so affected.
(2A) A council does not incur any liability in respect of—
(a) any advice furnished in good faith by the council relating to the likelihood of any land being subject to the risk of bush fire or the nature or extent of any such risk, or
(b) anything done or omitted to be done in good faith by the council in so far as it relates to the likelihood of land being subject to the risk of bush fire.
(3) Without limiting subsections (1), (2) and (2A), those subsections apply to—
(a) the preparation or making of an environmental planning instrument, including a planning proposal for the proposed environmental planning instrument, or a development control plan, or the granting or refusal of consent to a development application, or the determination of an application for a complying development certificate, under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, and
(b) the preparation and adoption of a coastal management program under the Coastal Management Act 2016 (and the preparation and making of a coastal zone management plan under the Coastal Protection Act 1979 that is continued in effect by operation of clause 4 of Schedule 3 to the Coastal Management Act 2016), and
(c) the imposition of any condition in relation to an application referred to in paragraph (a), and
(d) advice furnished in a certificate under section 149 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, and
(e) the carrying out of flood mitigation works, and
(f) the carrying out of coastal protection works, and
(f1) the carrying out of bush fire hazard reduction works, and
(f2) anything done or omitted to be done regarding beach erosion or shoreline recession on Crown land (including Crown managed land) or land owned or controlled by a council or a public authority, and
(f3) the failure to upgrade flood mitigation works or coastal protection works in response to projected or actual impacts of climate change, and
(f4) the failure to undertake action to enforce the removal of illegal or unauthorised structures that results in erosion of a beach or land adjacent to a beach, and
(f5) the provision of information relating to climate change or sea level rise, and
(f6) (Repealed) anything done or omitted to be done regarding the negligent placement or maintenance by a landowner of emergency coastal protection works authorised by a certificate under Division 2 of Part 4C of the Coastal Protection Act 1979,
(g) any other thing done or omitted to be done in the exercise of a council’s functions under this or any other Act.
(4) Without limiting any other circumstances in which a council may have acted in good faith, a council is, unless the contrary is proved, taken to have acted in good faith for the purposes of this section if the advice was furnished, or the thing was done or omitted to be done—
(a) substantially in accordance with the principles contained in the relevant manual most recently notified under subsection (5) at that time, or
(b) substantially in accordance with the principles and mandatory requirements set out in the current coastal management manual under the Coastal Management Act 2016, or
(c) in accordance with a direction under section 14(2) of the Coastal Management Act 2016.
(5) For the purposes of this section, the Minister for Planning may, from time to time, give notification in the Gazette of the publication of—
(a) a manual relating to the management of flood liable land, or
(b) (Repealed) a manual relating to the management of the coastline.
(c) a manual relating to the management of land subject to the risk of bush fire.
The notification must specify where and when copies of the manual may be inspected.
(6) A copy of the manual must be available for public inspection, free of charge, at the office of the council during ordinary office hours.
(7) This section applies to and in respect of—
(a) the Crown, a statutory body representing the Crown and a public or local authority constituted by or under any Act, and
(b) a councillor or employee of a council or any such body or authority, and
(c) a Public Service employee, and
(d) a person acting under the direction of a council or of the Crown or any such body or authority, and
(e) Water NSW, but only with respect to the exercise of its functions in the Sydney catchment area (within the meaning of the Water NSW Act 2014) or the exercise of its functions in any part of the State in connection with the granting of flood work approvals under the Water Management Act 2000,
in the same way as it applies to and in respect of a council.
(8) In this section—
coastal zone has the same meaning as in the Coastal Management Act 2016.
manual includes guidelines.
8 Personal liability
A matter or thing done or omitted to be done by the Project Review Committee, a member of the Project Review Committee or a person acting under the direction of the Project Review Committee does not, if the matter or thing was done or omitted to be done in good faith for the purpose of executing this or any other Act, subject a member or a person so acting personally to any action, liability, claim or demand.
Monday 4 July 2022
CLIMATE CHANGE & NEW SOUTH WALES: filed under 'What could possibly go wrong?"
Global sea levels have already risen by 20cm (between 1901 and 2018) and the Australasia region, which includes New Zealand, has experienced even higher rates than the global average. More coastal flooding is expected as levels rise even further. The latest predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report reveal further increases are largely locked in, with a rise of about 15cm to 30cm [0.3m] expected by around 2050. [news.com.au, 21 September 2021]
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| Coastal Risk Australia updated inundation mapping for Lower Clarence Valley at 0.3m rise above mean sea level |
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| Coastal Risk Australia updated inundation mapping for Lower Clarence Valley at 0.6m above mean sea level |
I find it immeasurably sad that the NSW Government and coastal local government councils continue to plan development based on pre-Climate Emergency conditions.
It's a though every climate change induced disaster and widespread adverse weather event that has occurred in the last 22 years - from the Millennial Drought to stronger East Coast Lows to constant coastal erosion eating away at foreshores to mega-bushfires to devastating record flooding to what appears to be a food shortage cycle developing - are still matters these two tiers of government can only deal with as compartmentalised abstracts when it comes to both short-term and long-term urban planning.
They still see low lying coastal areas with soft shore lines and city, town & village precincts slap in the middle of coastal floodplains already under stress, as capable of development far into the future - when in reality many may well be reduced in area or completely uninhabitable within the next 30 to 100 years.
Clarence Valley Independent, 29 June 2022:
The state government is calling for public submissions about changes to Clarence Valley Council’s Business and Industrial Zones, which will be called Employment Zones, under new Local Environment Planning laws.
In May 2021, The NSW Department of Environment and Planning DEP proposed that existing Business and Industrial zones be replaced with five Employment zones and three supporting zones under the Standard Instrument Local Environment Plans SILEP Order, 2006.
Since then, DEP planners have been working with Clarence Valley Council planning staff to ensure its Local Environment Plan ‘is amended consistent with the intent of the state government reforms, while also ensuring the land-use planning outcomes are appropriate to the Clarence Valley.’
When the Independent searched what impact the changes would have on a Yamba Street, Yamba address and a Prince Street, Grafton property, we discovered the premises would switch from a Business 2 Local Centre to an Employment 1 Local Centre.
Under the planning changes, home business, home industries and home occupations will be permitted without planning consent, adhering to the Employment zone objective ‘to provide a range of retail, business and community uses that serve the needs of people who live, work or visit the area.’
The new Employment zone also expands land use permissibility in both Grafton and Yamba, with a wider variety of businesses and land uses permitted than under previous laws, including serviced apartments, hotel and motel accommodation, local distribution premises and recreation areas…...
The zones will also address current barriers within the planning system that limit the ability of businesses to establish, expand or adapt.
The new LEP zones are designed to better support councils in the delivery of the strategic vision contained in their Local Strategic Planning Statements and background studies.
The spokesperson said the Employment zones will be in place within individual LEPs by December 1, when the Business and Industrial zones will be repealed.
Stakeholders are invited to make submissions on the changes to the NSW DEP until July 12.
To investigate the changes under the new employment zones in your area visit the NSW DEP Website www.planning.nsw.gov.au/employment-zones-reform
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