Buy back of flood-prone homes should happen now, NSW mayor says

Mayors and residents in flood-affected parts of northern New South Wales have called on the state government to push ahead with voluntary land buybacks without waiting for recommendations from an inquiry into the disaster.

The premier, Dominic Perrottet, said this week that he would adopt recommendations from the independent inquiry, including any proposals relating to the possible relocation of homes in flood-prone areas.

“We absolutely have to,” Perrottet said on Wednesday.

“If we have another flood like that in two or three years, and we’ve just gone back and done the same thing again, I would feel personally responsible.”

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Led by former police commissioner Mick Fuller and the chair of the planning commission, Dr Mary O’Kane, the inquiry is due to make recommendations to the government by the end of June. A separate NSW upper house inquiry held hearings in the region this week, while a chief executive has been appointed to the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation that will not begin operation until July.

More than three months since the region was devastated by flood waters, the Tweed shire mayor, Chris Cherry, said further delays must be avoided.

“People need that information right now,” Cherry said.

“Once people start to get insurance money they’re making decisions about whether or not to reinvest back into their house. Once they do that they don’t want to go through another process of trying to sell it and so you’re missing that window of opportunity.

“You really need to be able to offer it in the period that we’re in right now. Delaying it for months longer means we’ll have fewer people who are in a position to accept land swaps or buybacks.”

The NSW government already has a voluntary home purchasing scheme. The program is only funded for $2m dollars and has strict eligibility requirements. For example, homes built after 1986 aren’t eligible.

Cherry said 124 homes in the Tweed shire were eligible under the scheme, which could be bought immediately if the government expanded its funding.

In its submission to the parliamentary inquiry, the council said the scheme was “extraordinarily complex, long, and constrained by eligibility criteria”.

“At current funding levels, only two or three homes per year are able to be purchased or raised using … grant support, while we have dozens of properties in high hazard areas that have now been flooded twice in five years,” the council said.

“The purchasing power of the schemes has diminished significantly with the rapid escalation in housing prices and construction costs in the last two years.”

It recommended the state invest about $300m in the first year to purchase eligible homes, while using the O’Kane and Fuller report as a chance to expand the eligibility criteria.

For people like Sam Elley, whose home in Woodburn, south of Byron Bay, was submerged in about 4 metres of flood water causing about $200,000 in damage, the wait has already proved too long. She and her husband are getting on with repairs.

Elley hopes some of the destruction will be classified as storm, and not flood damage, so that it is covered by insurance.

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“We’re limited with income,” she said. “Lots of people have given us generous donations, and we’ve claimed as much as we can from the government … and there’s been bits from charities: the Salvos and the Red Cross.”

Given the government has yet to outline whether land swaps and buybacks will be on the table, Elley is glad she went ahead and engaged builders as it was in the best interests of her family’s mental health to have a home. But she said she will never feel the same about her Woodburn house and fears future flooding.

“We used to love the sound of rain, but I don’t think we’ll ever enjoy hearing that again, especially the big storms. I’m actually looking forward to the next drought to dry things out.”

The NSW minister for flood recovery, Steph Cook, said the government would respond “as quickly as practicable” to the report of the independent inquiry.

“The NSW government is aware of submissions and work done by local councils in support of land swaps and/or buy-backs, and we expect the independent flood inquiry to address all submissions in its report,” Cook said. “Our current priority is to house people who have been displaced by the floods”