Stop The Fill banner in front of retaining wall holding back landfill on a subdivision site in Carrs Drive, Yamba....
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| IMAGE: NBN News, 18 September 2022 Examples of STOP THE FILL: Don't Down Our Town corflutes out the front of homes on Yamba Rd, The Halyard & Golding Street.... |
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| Photographs supplied. |
Clarence Environment Centre, Winter newsletter – 2022, excerpt:
Who could have predicted that?
They have to be kidding!
The overworked phrase, “who could have seen this coming”, has been used by all levels of government to excuse the debacle which was the response to the recent flooding event across the Northern Rivers, and has been rightly ridiculed.
For 40 years, the world’s scientific community, through the UN, has been warning us that the changing climate will generate more frequent and more extreme weather events, and have begged the world’s governments to take appropriate action, with little success.
The failure of those governments to make meaningful attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is inexcusable. However, to fail to plan for those forecast catastrophic weather events, verges on criminal neglect. The recent flooding saw lives and property lost, businesses forced to close, and rendered thousands homeless.
In the Clarence Valley, the response to 4 decades of warnings about the inevitability of increased flooding. has been zero, something that even this latest disaster seems unlikely to change.
In fact, Council’s first act when reviewing the cause of ponding in some areas in Iluka, was to examine past rainfall data, leading to the hardly surprising conclusion that: “The significant rainfall has led to a saturated catchment and high-water table, exacerbating the time taken for water to disperse”.
Council’s statement continues with: “There has been no event or combination of events since records began that comes close to the rainfall totals recorded at Yamba”, going on to say: “We need to be aware that the most efficiently designed drainage systems are not built to cope with rainfall totals equal to that recently experienced”.
Having had over 40 years to plan for just such an event, we have to ask, why haven’t adequate drainage systems been designed, and required to be installed in all new developments?
Alongside one of Iluka’s ponding problem areas, a 140-lot subdivision is currently converting 14ha of bushland into roofs, concrete and bitumen, all combining to channel rainfall, at speed, through an inadequate stormwater system, directly into those ponding hotspots.
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The above image was of the condition of that housing development after the water had subsided. Laughingly advertised as “Birrigan Iluka Beach”, despite being nowhere near the waterfront, it has already changed water flows beginning with the removal of the forest which has led to the unprecedented ponding, prompting this Facebook comment (see right).
Council should be taking its “Climate Emergency” declaration seriously, and plan accordingly, but they aren’t, with multiple floodplain developments underway or in the planning stages in Iluka and Yamba.
Interesting time ahead!
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| Image: Google Earth |
NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING CANCELLATION –NORTHERN REGIONAL PLANNING PANEL
The following meeting has been cancelled:
· Panel reference number PPSNTH‐31 – Clarence Valley – SUB2019/0030 ‐ 52‐54 Miles St, Yamba ‐310 Lot Staged Residential Subdivision and ancillary infrastructure works including drainage reserves and the creation of a residue lot
The meeting was to be held on:
Wednesday, 21 September 2022 at 4pm
By teleconference
The meeting has been cancelled because the applicant has withdrawn the development application….
BACKGROUND
Clarence Valley Independent, 14 September 2022:
The Development Application DA for the $32 million staged residential subdivision located at the yet to be formed Miles Street, which runs east off Carrs Drive, was lodged with Clarence Valley Council CVC on behalf of Kahuna No 1 Pty Ltd, owners of the 42.5-hectare site.
The 850 metres by 500 metre site fronts Carrs Drive, with the to be constructed Miles Street and St James Primary School to the north, and Golding Street to the east.
CVC’s assessment report prepared by town planner James Hamilton notes the Kahuna Yamba Gardens DA was on public exhibition twice, with eight submissions received in the first exhibition period and 79 submissions from the most recent period.
“The Council received a total of 87 individual submissions, comprising 87 objections and no submissions in support of the proposed development,” Mr Hamilton’s report stated.
“The submissions raised issues relating to urban design, flooding, stormwater, traffic, filling, environment, services, climate change and sea level rise, heritage and impacts on the town.”
The assessment on the DA by Mr Hamilton listed six factors, including two endangered species, for refusal.
These factors for refusal included that The Rural Fire Service could not support the development under Section 100B of the Rural Fires Act 1997, and the fact the site contains two listed endangered flora species being Rotala tripartita and Spider orchid.
“Sufficient information has not been provided to enable a determination on how the proposed development will not likely have a serious and irreversible impact on these two species,” the assessment stated.
The DA was also found by council to be inconsistent with the General Residential, Flood Planning and Earthworks clauses of the Clarence Valley Local Environment Plan 2011.
“The proposal is inconsistent with the aims of Clarence Valley Local Environmental Plan 2011 as it has not been satisfactorily demonstrated that the proposed development will enable the sustainable development of the site, adequately protect areas of high ecological value and maintain the character of Yamba township,” the assessment stated.
CVC’s assessment also found the DA was inconsistent with numerous parts of the Clarence Valley Residential Zones Development Control Plan 2011, including Floodplain Management Controls, Sustainable Water Controls and Urban Release Area Controls…..
Watch this space for the next development application Mr. Merchant lodges on this land.
Meanwhile over in the Parkes Menai- Hometown Australia camp.....
It appears that Hometown Australia Management Pty Ltd's est. $33.9 million development application DA2021/0558 for 138 dwellings, an exhibition home and community facilities at 8 Park Ave, Yamba, may be deferred yet again by the Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP) as the NSW Dept. of Planning and Environment has not yet submitted its review of the flooding and risk evacuation procedures supplied by Hometown at the request of NRPP.
This is a proposed development with an unhappy history. The original land clearing and landfill under a Parkes Developments DA resulted in the unapproved felling of a significant number of native trees in the adjoining dedicated Wattle Park.
Further, although the original land fill on 8 Park Ave is estimated to have reached RL2.8AHD so that the site only has a 1% (1 in 100) chance in any given year of being surrounded by 2.08 to 2.51 metres of flood water, the stormwater flows from this approx. 6.65ha lot enter an inadequate on-site and extended drainage network.
Resulting in situations like this for established homes now at a comparatively altered ground level approx. 2.8m lower than the very large Park Ave lot.
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| Extract from a submission to Clarence Valley Council, 28 October 2021 |
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| Extract from a submission to Clarence Valley Council, 29 October 2021 - open ditch drain |
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| Extract from "West Yamba Update", West Yamba Information, 21 June 2022 - before and after height of common boundary with 8 Park Ave, Yamba |
This is a situation which during prolonged/high rainfall events is likely to exacerbate the 2-5% chance of mixed stormwater-riverine water inundation in adjacent streets and across a number of residential properties. As occurred in the March 2022.
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Lot 245 / 22 Carrs Drive, West Yamba, multiple lot subdivision. Just one section of the total landfill which will be required across est. 127ha of a natural flood storage area . IMAGE: The Daily Telegraph, 31 May 2021.
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