So why did the NSW Perrottet Government compose and compile those documents in the 2021 "Flood prone land" package if its regional planning panels are allowed to play fast and loose with the package provisions when considering large scale-large dollar value developments?

"NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has vowed his government will not repeat “the mistakes of the past” in allowing development on floodplains that risks lives and property." [NSW Premier and Liberal MLA for Epping Dominic Perrottet, Financial Review, 22 July 2022]

"the days of developing on floodplains in the state were over" [NSW Premier and Liberal MLA for Epping Dominic Perrottet, AAP 28 October 2022]

Yamba, New South Wales, known to have a permanent First Nations settlement before 1799. Land area is enclosed by Pacific Ocean, Clarence River, Oyster Channel and Lake Wooloweyah. A coastal land corridor to the east of the lake approx. 1.12km wide and 1.13km long anchors Yamba & environs to the NSW mainland. IMAGE: Google Earth, October 2021

On 26 October 2022 Hometown America LLC through its subsidiary Hometown Australia received development consent from the NSW Northern Regional Planning Panel for DA2021/0558, 8 Park Ave Yamba, Multi-Dwelling Manufactured Housing (136 dwellings, clubhouse, community facilities for the over 50s).

This development consent was a split decision 3 to 2 – with the three permanent panel members Paul Mitchell, Steven Gow & Penny Holloway (or alternate) voting down the serious concerns held by the panel’s two local government area members, Clarence Valley Council Mayor Ian Tiley and Deputy Mayor Greg Clancy.

NOTE: Northern Rivers Planning Panel (NRPP) is constituted for local government areas of Armidale Regional, Ballina, Bellingen, Byron, Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour City, Glen Innes Severn Shire, Gunnedah, Gwydir, Inverell, Kempsey, Kyogle, Lismore City, Liverpool Plains, Moree Plains, Nambucca, Narrabri, Port Macquarie-Hastings, Richmond Valley, Tamworth Regional, Tenterfield, Tweed, Uralla and Walcha.

Around 42 concerned Yamba residents – plus representatives of YambaCAN and Valley Watch, along with NSW MLC Cate Faehrmann and Yamba residents CVC Crs. Debrah Novak & Karen Toms – were online for this NRPP virtual public meeting.

Of those Yamba and Northern Rivers residents who had registered to speak at the meeting not one voiced support for the creation of this manufactured home estate. In fact the only persons appearing before the panel who supported this development were council staff and those employed by or representing the interests of Hometown America LLC – the most egregious of which was Bewsher Consulting Pty Ltd.

As an online observer of that meeting it is my opinion that neither Hometown Australia nor Clarence Valley Council staff offered solid proof that the planned development:

(i) “will not adversely affect the environment in the event of a flood”;

(ii) as “senior housing” did not fall within the existing Department of Planning, Industry and Environment category of “Sensitive and Hazardous Development”;

(iii) was not within one of those “areas with evacuation limitations”;

(iv) by adding another 136 dwellings to the existing 4,073 residential dwellings within town precincts [ABS, 2021] would not be increasing overall dwelling densities which would have “a significant impact on the ability of the existing community to evacuate using existing evacuation routes within the available warning time”. [DPIE, “Considering flooding in land use planning; Guideline”, July 2021]

In fact there is a strong possibility that this development is/will cause/contribute to all those matters found in the aforementioned (i) to (iv) list.

On completion of construction 8 Park Ave will be Hometown America’s sixth site in the Northern Rivers region – bringing its land lease sites in Yamba to two manufactured homes estates.

It will also increase the Yamba population by between 136 and 272 people over 50 years of age, in a town where 57.50% of the population are already aged 50 to 85 years of age and older [Australian Census, August 2021].

This development will also increase the population in the 0.37sq.km SA1 statistical precinct it lies within – from 654 persons to between 790–926 persons depending on number of occupants per dwelling at 8 Park Ave. 

Note: This statistical precinct is bounded by sections of Park Ave, Wattle Drive, Gumnut Road, The Links, The Mainbrace, Shores Drive and Yamba Road and currently contains more than 200 houses, townhouses and apartments/units. Along with one childminding centre and one motel [maps.abs.gov.au, 2021]

The current dwelling density within town boundaries is est. 345.7 per sq. km. It is not outside the realms of possibility that over the next 28 years dwelling density may rise as high as >400 per sq. km, given the cumulative effect of land release zoned for or under residential development elsewhere in Yamba. [IDcommunity: Demographic Resources, Clarence Valley Council Social Atlas, 2021]  

Sadly, it will also add to Yamba’s climate change risk as it places more pressure on the town’s only evacuation route in times of flooding-storm water inundation or storm surge. A route which has repeatedly failed during previous flood events given the number of locations floodwater cuts Yamba Road within township boundaries and beyond.

Over the course of the next 28 years the NSW Government’s so-called strategic planning for regional urban expansion apparently intends to increase the population of Yamba & environs by at least another 4,000 men, women and children.

They will all still be expected to travel along this road during high rainfall events, storm surge and/or flooding.

Yamba Road heading towards Oyster Channel Bridge, March 2022, IMAGE: March 2022, YambaCAN

Cross this bridge

Oyster Channel bridge linking Yamba with the wider Clarence Valley
IMAGE: March 2022,  supplied

And traverse causeways across two other river channels – the first of which is frequently cut during major flood events. 

This journey is the only option in any effort to find dry land and safety in the wider Clarence Valley, which itself would have been flooding for days ahead of any emergency services advice to evacuate all or part of Yamba township.

Yamba Road itself is a two lane undivided road carrying between 10,000 t0 17,000 vehicle movements a day as it crosses over Oyster Channel [Transport NSW July 2021]. Within town limits the road currently experiences est. 10,573 vehicle movements a day in the vicinity of its intersection with Treelands Drive and it has AM and PM peaks of 750 veh/hour for traffic travelling in both directions. The expectation it that traffic volume on Yamba Road is growing 3.5% annually [Geolink, March 2022].

This main road varies between 1.4mAHD and 2mAHD in height which mean it can be cut by flood water in one or more of at least five points along its length within the town before Oyster Channel bridge and a number of points after the bridge along that section from Micalo Island to Maclean township limits. This road can be inundated somewhere along its length in 1 in 10 ARI and greater flood events. 

Reading the little that is written by local and state governments, emergency services and property developers about emergency evacuation from Yamba, it appears that from now into the foreseeable future the entire town population of est. 6,405 men, women and children along with the town's visitor population which can range anywhere between a few hundred to thousands of holidaymakers, are expected to immediately respond to advice to evacuate the predominately low-lying areas of the town.

Even on a fine day without the river in flood, with Yamba on the move in est. 4,180 vehicles accompanied by an untold number of visitor cars (some towing caravans or boats) on that one westbound lane of a two lane road, just how long would it take to first clear the town limits and then continue on that approx. 19km stretch of Yamba Road to reach Maclean or the turnoff to the Pacific Highway? In a high rainfall event with advice to evacuate ahead of a major flood? I suspect that there would be multiple intersection traffic snarls within the first hour.

An evacuation situation which is not supposed to be allowed to develop under official planning policies, guidelines, orders and directions found in the NSW Government “Flood prone land package”.

As an alternative to a closed evacuation route heading out of town, in a major flood local residents are expected after registering at the Bowling Club to head for the only high ground in Yamba – Pilot Hill and environs.

A hill with the Pacific Ocean at its foot. A hill historically known for increased groundwater levels during days of sustained rain or heavy rainfall events. Events which have been associated with land slumping, scouring, earthslides, earthflows and landslides on the marginal stability slopes.

A hill with a mapped landslip risk area which includes much of the community land/open space available to persons seeking safety during times when there is widespread flooding in the low-lying residential sections of the town.

The highlighted area shows Crown land/community land & properties in the Yamba landslide risk zone, as defined by Clarence Valley Council in March 2017

So how big a burden can this hill physically carry when it comes to evacuees? There is no answer to that question that I can find. Perhaps the question is yet to be asked by federal, state and local government or emergency services.

All I know is that even if one only calculated on the basis of average body weight of 3,000 adults [ABS 2011-12] and average unladen weight of 750 full-sized sedan motor vehicles [AuotChimp 2022], then a mass evacuation of less than half the resident population to Pilot Hill and environs and congregating there on community land in the absence of sufficient emergency accommodation, this would place an additional surface weight stress of est. 1,560 tons. A weight which would be moving and vibrating not only on the geologically safe section around the water tower but also on land having marginal stability in adverse weather conditions.

I cannot state my opinion any clearer than this – any large scale emergency evacuation of the Yamba population is highly likely to fail because of city-centric policymakers basic lack of informed understanding of vulnerabilities in the local road network, continued bad urban development planning loading a higher population into a town known to become isolated in natural disasters and, insufficient understanding of changing sea rise, storm surge and flood behaviours. Lives will inevitably be lost if or when situations become catastrophic.

 

BACKGROUND

Hometown America LLC is a residential land lease company operating over 60 manufactured home sites in the U.S. styled as affordable housing.

The corporation is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and has two business divisions – the Hometown America Family Communities and Hometown America Age-Qualified (55+) Communities.

Its current CEO/President is Richard Cline.

Hometown America has been the defendant in multiple legal actions principally brought by individuals and groups of individuals who were residents in its U.S. land lease-manufactured home sites.

Hometown America is the parent company of Hometown Australia headquartered in Queensland and when it was establishing itself in Australia was composed of the following entities:

A.C.N. 626 522 085 Pty. Ltd – registered in NSW on 31 May 2018

Hometown Australia Management Pty Ltd (ACN 614 529 538 )

Hometown Australia Nominees Pty Ltd (ACN 616 047 084) atf Hometown Australia Property Trust (Hometown).

Through its Australian subsidiary Hometown Australia this U.S. corporation currently operates est. 51 sites in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales, marketed as affordable housing and lifestyle living for the over 50s. Including 4 sites in the Northern Rivers regions.

Hometown America’s land-lease sites in NSW are governed by the provisions in the Residential (Land Lease) Communities Act 2013.

Real Estate agents Kevin Tucker and Stuart Long appear to be joint managing directors of Hometown Australia.

In the first financial year Hometown America LLC was operating in Australia 2019-20 its local arm Hometown Australia Holdings Pty Ltd declared an income of $185,480,667 with no taxable income and no taxes paid. In 2020-21 its second financial year its local arm declared  $314,117, 781 in income with no taxable income or tax paid. [Australian Taxation Office, Data Sets, Corporate Tax Transparency, Report on Entity Tax Information 2019-20 & 2020-21]

Hometown Australia is gaining a similar reputation to its U.S. parent company when it comes to resident’s complaints and concerns about its business practices – particularly in relation rent increases and poor maintenance of community facilities [media report 2020, media report 2021 & media report 2022].

No sign of a break in widespread rain across NSW and road damage toll mounts

 

The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October 2022:

Holidaymakers heading into regional NSW over the next few months have been told to brace themselves for longer journeys on more dangerous roads after a year of record rain and flooding.

The severe weather has caused billions of dollars in damage to local roads across the state, bringing regional councils to “their knees” as they struggle with repairs, and heaping pressure on the state government to intervene…..

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said the damage to roads across the state posed a safety risk heading into the summer and councils needed more state and federal funding to ensure their roads were safe after the rain.

“The roads are not great, they are littered with potholes and are severely damaged, but also roadworks will be taking place, which means people will need to slow down for those as well,” he said.

“There are safety risks when it comes to roads that are so badly damaged. It is easier to lose control, especially on high-speed roads.

“It’s going to be a challenging period and it’s not going to get better until the rain stops.”

The NRMA roadside assistance team was receiving almost twice as many call-outs for tyre and wheel damage in NSW compared with last year.

NSW Farmers fears the state of regional roads will impede the harvest of this year’s winter crops, due to start in NSW in the next few weeks, because heavy vehicles and machinery will struggle to get to farms and then get the crops to market…...

Local Government NSW said some councils were now spending up to 90 per cent of their capital works budgets on road repairs and this year’s rain had caused $2.5-$3 billion worth of damage to local roads.

It reiterated its call for the state government to act on its 2019 election promise and take over 15,000 kilometres of country roads owned and repaired by councils.

A spokesman said the government’s failure to do so had “heaped more pain on many regional and rural councils, who are financially on their knees due to rising repair costs”.

Almost 80 councils have identified 500 roads they want the state government to reclassify or take over. So far, the government has said it will take on five roads – totalling 391 kilometres – identified in a priority audit, but the transfer of ownership will take time. An independent panel is reviewing the remaining nominations……

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) expects this current bout of rain to continue falling over the Northern Rivers region at least until Thursday 27 October.

BOM advice as of 19 October 2022 was:

Significant rain and thunderstorms are continuing to spread across eastern and south-eastern Australia and will continue into next week.

Rain and thunderstorms with heavy falls over South Australia and Queensland are due to spread into northern and western New South Wales towards the South Australian and New South Wales border on Wednesday night.

Severe thunderstorms are also likely across Queensland and northern New South Wales, with heavy rainfall leading to flash flooding, damaging winds and large hail. Heavy falls across inland South Australia could also lead to flash flooding.

Thursday will see widespread thunderstorms across eastern Queensland, New South Wales, northern Victoria, and far eastern parts of South Australia, with isolated heavy falls.

Inland Queensland and New South Wales are also likely to see some severe thunderstorms with heavy rain, damaging winds and large hail, with giant hail also possible.

Further rainfall in coming days for southern inland Queensland, on and west of the ranges in New South Wales and northern Victoria is likely to lead to widespread moderate to major flooding impacting already flood affected communities.

On Friday and leading into Saturday widespread showers and thunderstorms will continue for eastern Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, as humid and unstable conditions persist across eastern and south-eastern Australia.

Severe thunderstorms are likely across eastern Queensland, New South Wales, and parts of Victoria, bringing more large hail, damaging winds, and heavy rainfall.

Severe thunderstorms are likely across eastern Queensland, New South Wales, and parts of Victoria, bringing more large hail, damaging winds, and heavy rainfall.

Widespread rainfall totals of 25 to 50 mm are likely across South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria this week and into the weekend, with 50 to 100 mm falls possible in southern inland Queensland, on and west of the ranges in New South Wales.

This rain and storm activity will lead to renewed river level rises and widespread moderate to major flooding across southern Queensland, inland New South Wales, and possibly northern Victoria…...

For all the latest warnings see National Warnings Summary.

8-DAY TOTAL RAIN FORECAST

Australian Bureau of Meteorology, rain map, issued 7:43am AED Thursday 20 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.