Decade-old flood maps used for Sandy Point townhouse DA. What's the risk?

The picturesque holiday town of Sandy Point was the focus of a heated South Gippsland council debate over whether new homes should be approved in areas that could be impacted by flooding.

What happened: Sandy Point Holiday Park, which has provided affordable accommodation for families for 60 years, is set to become 11 permanent townhouses, after South Gippsland Shire Mayor Nathan Hersey used his casting vote to back the proposal.

The planning application faced stiff opposition from councillors, a Sandy Point community group and caravan park users. A public consultation period attracted 30 submissions, 29 of which were objections.

The development comes as Victorian local councils update coastal hazard mapping, which is preparing for a sea level rise of no less than 80 centimetres over the next 74 years.

Speaking against the development, councillor Sarah Gilligan told the April 15 council meeting: "We do not know what extra risks are going to come back with [the new coastal hazard maps]. So, how can we make decisions about whether this is okay to subdivide now?"

Hersey, speaking in favour, said council's role as a planning authority was to assess applications against the current planning scheme, not unpublished future mapping.

But Gilligan warned approving the plans would lock the council “into yet another legacy planning issue, which we come across all the time”. 

Why do we need new maps?

University of Melbourne coastal geomorphologist, Professor David Kennedy, told the Monitor local governments need to continually update flood mapping as scientists gain a clearer picture of how the climate is changing.

“We're reaping the bad decisions of the past in terms of planning, where we put people into the current hazardous zones,” Kennedy said.

“They shouldn't have been able to buy in the first place. We need to think of it beforehand. At the moment, we've been passing the buck down to the grandchildren and the great grandchildren.”

Kennedy said he thought 80cm was a conservative estimate on sea level rise in Australia and that the figure would likely be closer to 120cm.

Community group upset 

As with many low-lying Gippsland coastal towns, water inundation from rising sea levels is a growing concern for Sandy Point’s population of around 270.

Sandy Point Community Group President, Michelle Jelleff, told the Monitor people in the town were disappointed the council didn’t delay a decision until the updated coastal hazard report was released.

Councillors based their townhouse DA decision on information that included flood mapping from 2016. New flood mapping is underway and due to be published this year.

“It's quite possible the [updated mapping] would have impacted this development's approval,” Jelleff said.

Gilligan argued during the meeting that the site had not been properly assessed against the Victorian Marine and Coastal Act 2018, which requires councils to prevent housing being developed on land at risk of coastal hazards.

• West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority objected to the application based on the risk of water inundation and coastal erosion.

The vote

Councillors Sarah Gilligan, Bron Beach, Brad Snell and Clare Williams voted to refuse the development application, while councillors Steve Finlay, John Kennedy, Scott Rae and Nathan Hersey voted to approve it.

Mayor Nathan Hersey exercised his casting vote to push through the development.