Climate change impact raised at planning panel

The impacts of climate change, especially sea level rise, on Woy Woy and the whole Peninsula, were addressed by more than one speaker at the August 23 Joint Regional Planning Panel meeting.

Woy Woy resident Mr James Waugh addressed the panel and argued that redevelopment of the club for seniors accommodation should be refused on the basis of the present and future flood hazard.

Mr Waugh said current planning standards had been based on a 2008 Court of Appeal case, which had wisely directed local councils to consider ecologically sustainable principles including the likely impacts of sea level rise.

He said the CSIRO had set its sea level rise projections at 74cm by 2100 and the Central Coast Council, to its credit, has a climate change policy that allows for that.

"If that was placed in the assessment report it would allow for an alarming increase in flooding of [the development] site," he said.

Accelerating and nuisance flooding as a result of sea level rise is already becoming more frequent in the area, he argued.

"Now is not the time to embark on large residential developments such as senior housing on flood prone land," he said.

Mr Norman Harris, speaking on behalf of the Australian Conservation Foundation Central Coast Branch, said the development application under discussion had relevance to the Central Coast Council's draft climate change policy, due for public exhibition on September 6.

"Speculative is an apt description of this DA," Mr Harris said.

He said a flood risk management study of the area in question, conducted by the former Gosford Council only three years ago, did not envisage the possibility of a DA the size of the proposal for Sporties.

"They never told to us at the public meetings for that risk management study that there was going to be high rise on the foreshore.

"Everyone who made submissions to that risk management study did so on the basis the character of the area at that time was going to continue into the future.

"No one envisaged that this sort of development would ever be considered on a flood plain.

"It does not make sense," he said.

SOURCE:

Meeting, 23 Aug 2018

Central Coast Joint Regional Planning Panel

Reporter: Jackie Pearson