Sea-rise maps threat to value of properties

Jessica Benton
NEW planning rules threaten to slash the value of hundreds of Geelong region properties deemed at risk of rising sea levels.
Borough of Queenscliffe is the region’s first council to outline new guidelines for decisions on planning applications in areas identified as prone to flooding from climate change.
Urban Development Institute of Australia executive director Tony De Domenico said the rules threatened to put hundreds of properties off limits for development.
He warned the guidelines could damage property values.
“I’d suggest council sits back and takes a deep breath and thinks about what it’s going to do,” he said.
“If the borough is going with the recommendations it could eventually be the only shire in Australia without any ratepayers.”
Mr De Domenico said the borough would have to consider options for compensating property owners in areas judged at risk of flooding, such as buying them out or slashing their rates.
“What happens to existing properties on those flood plains? Do their prices go down accordingly?
“This is a bad call. They (authorities) haven’t taken into account the ramifications it may have on all of the existing and future property owners.”
The borough has based its draft guidelines on Corangamite Catchment Management Authority’s first maps of how it expects rising seas to affect the region.
The maps show dozens of properties in the Queenscliff-Point Lonsdale area subject to flooding from rising seas.
The authority has used a CSIRO forecast of seas rising .8 metres by the end of the century to produce the maps.
Under the new planning rules, the borough will seek “advice” from the catchment management authority on planning applications for properties in areas subject to forecast flooding.
Residential building applications would be refused for areas judged at high or extreme risk and some medium zones.
Borough Mayor Bob Merriman said council planned to consult the community on the new planning process.
“What we’ve now got is advice on an interim level and that tells us what’s going to happen over many years,” he said.
“There are a range of considerations coming forward to us and we want to go to the community because people need to understand what’s going on.”
Mr Merriman said council would use the catchment authority’s advice to decide whether to approve planning applications until “further advice” from State Government.
He said four planning permit applications were already subject to the new rules.
The catchment management authority has yet to produce maps for Geelong or Surf Coast.
But Mr De Demenico said the catchment authority had already given advice against a property development at Anglesea, costing the land owner hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost value.
The low-lying block was on River Reserve Road, he said.
Developers institute vice-president John Cicero said the property was passed in at auction after the catchment authority sent a letter to the land owners saying the site could be subject to flooding from climate change.
The property later sold privately, Mr Cicero said.
The owner had planned a six-unit development but was told the rising seas forecast meant the land could only accommodate one dwelling, he said.
“Here we have a property that had a price quoted by the agent that was three times what it actually sold for.”
A spokesperson for the catchment authority said it had provided advice to Surf Coast Shire about the site.
The spokesperson said the advice would only be available from the shire.
However, a shire spokesperson said the advice was unavailable for release because it was “still going through the planning process”.