Essay by Eric Worrall
Local governments attempting to apply new Victorian state sea level rise building permit rules to residential blocks bought in good faith are creating legal chaos.
Coastal councils urge action after rejecting permits over sea level rises
By Benjamin Preiss and Royce Millar
March 13, 2023 — 7.20pmCoastal councils are pleading for state government guidance as they find themselves rejecting planning permits for new houses because of the risks of rising sea levels.
Bass Coast Shire is among several Victorian councils in coastal locations saying it is being forced to dash the dreams of beachside living due to the risk of inundation.
Councils from along the state’s 2500-kilometre coastline, and the national body representing planners, want the state government to roll out consistent flood maps across the Victorian coastline to identify where building is, or is not, allowed so property owners and purchasers are in no doubt about the rules for individual sites.
They fear the ad hoc nature of the current system leaves them open to costly claims for compensation and lengthy tussles with landowners through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).
To further complicate matters, the state government is also at odds with some councils over its sea level rise predictions, which are based on 15-year-old projects and considered outdated by many scientists.
…
Read more: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/coastal-councils-urge-action-after-rejecting-permits-over-sea-level-rises-20230310-p5cr7b.html
The real problem is not sea level rise, even if it occurs, or the Bass Coast Shire council. The problem is the authoritarian, deep green Victorian state administration, which appears to believe they have an unfettered right to tell people what risks they can take with their own property – even when that involves changing the ground rules after people have purchased residential land in good faith.
But what else would you expect, from an a state administration which in 2021 decided the appropriate response to a lockdown freedom protest was to open fire with rubber bullets, even though the protestors were unarmed.
The Bass Coast Shire Council seems to be a copy of the California Coastal Commission, infamous for ex post facto rules and violations of the Fifth Amendment.
the 5th is about Grand juries and the right not to self incriminate. Are you sure
Why only Grand juries? People can refuse to answer, to avoid possible self-incrimination, in front or petit juries, or even just in front of a judge, without a jury poresetn.
You forgot the last clause—nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. The Coastal Commission seems to regard everything remotely “coastal” as already theirs.
See Nollan vs California Costal Commission. (stop letting your emotional biases get in the way of reality; your form of reality is harmful to you and society in general).
How very government to create rules for a hypothetical risk 100 years into the future and yet permit building on flood plains which carry a real risk of flooding and bushfire every year.
Thats easy . The floor level is say 0.5m above the 1% flood level.
A lot of places were built before this became a rule but would apply for a new build on the same site
Doesnt include garages etc but many people use them as extended living area or storage
Actually, that’s done. The rule here seems to be 0.8 m above previous max high tide.
Which of course is totally idiotic,..
… and will not happen for some 800 years at current Australian coast sea level rise rates.
As I’ve been reading and understand it, liberal estimates indicate a steady 12 inches per century SLR. I think this can be dealt with reasonably; but I could see how councils and government agencies would love to make a name for themselves as climate change warriors.
This would be a good situation where these government agencies would now need to try to PROVE whatever extreme SLR they are believing in.
It’s a belief. You don’t need to prove it, you just believe.
Fire them and start over these guys don’t know what they are doing.
“sea level rise predictions, which are based on 15-year-old projects and considered outdated”
Not to worry. We live in an illusion.
The real world ended 8 years ago. Or 10. Or 7. Illusion is like this.
Remember the 2021 end-of-world Mayan calendar scare?
my wife is convinced the world did actually end, but true to the principles of Douglas Adams, it was immediately replaced by something even more inexplicable…
“my wife is convinced the world did actually end,”
“immediately replaced by something even more inexplicable…”
Maybe time to replace with a more rational wife !!
Nah, I’ll take intelligent, witty, considerate, pretty, dedicated and grounded in reality, and her cooking, above any stranger’s measure for rational, any day…
At least she understands numbers, numbers make fun of rational any day.
Maybe time to replace with a more rational wife !!
Looking at the world today, that position seems just as rational as any other…
I thought that was 2012?
Maybe it also caused dyslexia
I ain’t not lysdexic!!!
As J S Mill contends at length in the essay On Liberty it is not the proper role of the state to protect competent adults from themselves or their own folly but it is the duty of the state to ensure citizens are fully informed of possible risks etc. hence warnings on packets of cigarettes.
Similarly the Victorian Government must publish their supposed flood maps and as Eric says leave it to individuals decide the risks.
Actually, if you are not self insured or do not wish to have flood insurance for the building, the insurance companies will decide what the risk will cost you for insurance protection.
I have a cabin in an area surrounded by federal forests. Insurance rates for many people, mostly those who SHOP their coverage regularly, have gone up substantially due to the losses in California. The insurers that had large numbers of policies in CA are recouping their losses wherever they can.
We have used our insurance carrier since we built the cabin16 years ago and insure a truck and 5th wheel with the same people/company. We haven’t gotten hit with any unreasonable increases ever.
“The problem is the authoritarian, deep green Victorian state administration, which appears to believe they have an unfettered right to tell people what risks they can take with their own property”
There is nothing new or green about having rules that prevent building on areas likely to be flooded. And the converse applies; if properties become unsaleable, the governments come under strong pressure (with lawsuits) to compensate or buy back from owners, as in Lismore.
Contrary to what is said in this quote, the Vic government does have a rule which seems quite reasonable, as mentioned later in the article. It says you can’t build lower than 0.8m above previous max high tide. Of course sometimes that requires local surveying to determine, so the government can’t just put a map for the state.
But that is existing high tide, the issue here as I understand it is what some bureaucrat believes a hypothetical future high tide will be.
Would you like to substantiate that?
The linked Age article is clear: “Coastal councils are pleading for state government guidance as they find themselves rejecting planning permits for new houses because of the risks of rising sea levels“.
That says that the councils are rejecting, but they would like the bureaucrats to take the responsibility off their hands.
The first responsibility should to be to common sense.
Some 800 years before we get 0.8m of SLR at current east coast Australia rate.
Why should he have to substantiate a rebuttal to what you refuse to substantiate?
The biggest issue IMO is people who purchased zoned residential land in good faith are suddenly being told they cannot build, not because of current tide levels, but because of the bureaucrat’s opinion of what future tide levels will be.
A more reasonable approach would be to leave that conversation to the owner and their finance provider, or to have never allowed those at risk properties to be sold. At the very least people who purchased such properties in good faith should be bought out by the government at a price which would allow them to purchase a nearby block of land which isn’t subject to the new SLR rules.
Eric,
These “SLR” rules are not new or unreasonable. They require a margin of 0.8 m, which covers both SLR and future larger storms, as well as possible land subsidence.
They are not “suddenly being told”. The obligation is on the buyer to do proper research, which will probably include surveying.
The land should never have been zoned residential if it was in violation of long standing SLR projection limits.
Zoning is done by the council, with no specific building plans before them. You can build a house, as long as you can get a building permit. In the story you cited, at least one of the owners did just that, by raising the floor level. Zoning decisions can’t anticipate these negotiations.
Stop trying to justify the total lack of common sense of the AGW scam!
0.8m… in some 800 years. !
What “future larger storms.”??
Have your religion and your h@te of poor people come so far that you believe the ludicrous projection of your CAGW priesthood that global warming will create LARGER FUTURE storms when all the natural warming since the Little Ice Age has shown no such increase in the number or intensity of storms.
I cannot help but think that you Nick, at one time a thinking person, have totally lost all your capability to use REASON in any sense of the word.
“prevent building on areas likely to be flooded.”
But these coastal areas are not likely to get flooded for some 800 or so years !
0.8m
How idiotic is that !!
0.8 m is a very modest nod towards normal caution.
I suggest to the moderators that all of Nick Stokes comments go into moderation for 0.8 hours as a nod towards normal caution.
I am getting to the point where I think 0.8 of a decade might be more reasonable.
.8 m is absurd. You know it too. Even you who is a True Believer in all of this ridiculousness know that there is no way there’s going to be anywhere near 0.8 m increase in sea level in the next hundred years much less the time applicable to a local Council Zoning for residential buildings that will probably last nowhere near that long.
We have pictures of the coast from 100 years ago and the sea level has not risen in Australia in that time.
This is akin to a coastal town in Sweden making the same sort of suggestion even though their sea level has been falling for the last hundred years due to isostatic rebound.
“It says you can’t build lower than 0.8m above previous max high tide.”
That is incorrect. It say you can’t build in an area that may be at risk for erosion if sea level rises 0.8 meters, which they claim could happen by 2100. Not only is the estimate farcical, it says they must build for conditions eighty years in the future.
Can’t build somewhere that might flood in 300 years. Seems reasonable to any insane person.
There’s no point engaging with Nick. He gets off on the attention.
Comparing Lismore, where nearly the entire town is built on a flood plain, to a fictional tide level that might happen in a 100 years and has been proven time and again to be false, is just typical of your obtuseness.
A few years ago SLR in the Queensland State Planning Policy was based on RCP 8.5, in other words, nonsense. I succeeded in getting it removed from the SPP. (I had a line of contact to the deputy premier.) Then the loonies were re-elected and it was put back in. Needless to say, there has been very little net change along the north-eastern coastline. On my stretch of it, there has been no measurable change in high water mark. AHD (height above mean sea level) of my property has gone up from 3.9m to 4m, probably due to improvements in measuring rather than sea level change. On the south coast it looks about the same, eg changes each way due to changes in coastal topography, but nothing signifiant overall. Masses of alarmist claims being made of course.
Congratulations on your perseverence. And a Win!, even if only temporary. Gives us all hope that protesting can work.
A little further up the east coast, I have been living in sea frontages on and off all my life.
We had to build sea walls and jetties to AHD 100, which is king tide datum, and various councils had rules to say that habitable rooms had to be built a certain height above this level.
0.8m, while probably higher than most, is reasonable considering that sea surge in storms can be quite high, but mean sea levels have actually gone down in Sydney Harbour since the first calculation in May 1914.
The average of all monthly MSLs since then is about 7inches lower and the latest in Jan 2023 is over 4 inches lower:
http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70000/IDO70000_60370_SLD.shtml
Pretty sure the same occurred with beachridge estate here in Jurien Bay, WA.
Cottage blocks ready for low entry price builds just sitting there for years now.
Why don’t they just let the insurance companies decide? If they are uninsurable, or the insurance cost would be prohibitive, it would be difficult to build in an area prone to inundation if the insurance companies believed it so.
Because the politicians need to broadcast that they’re “doing something,” even if that something is just preventing growth.
Copy the Dutch – Floating Houses Netherlands.Homes built on concrete pontoons
https://inhabitat.com/lessons-from-schoonschip-amsterdams-floating-eco-village/
or
&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=354e78962961440835889889a5dd577fd62620e79c64c784489bbbbef85e5b53&ipo=images
Check out ‘amphibious houses’
0r
Build on stilts
https://www.homestratosphere.com/houses-built-on-stilts/
Does it hurt to get hit by a rubber bullet? If it hit you in the face I bet it would cause significant damage.
Hurts like hell is what I’ve heard, and sometimes people hit by rubber bullets die, or lose their sight, or other horrible long term injuries.
I think the critics of the climate hoa..um..change got to them.
Many, many, are pointing out that the rich (and not so rich) have ocean front properties.
It’s then understandable that the Regime will try and prevent people from doing so.
Yes, they are this stupid and petty so I wouldn’t put it past them.
My family had a property in Marco Island Florida for years, just a lot we had but did nt use. I always dreamed of some day building a home down there. Come to find out my Dad sold it awhile back. My sister was always talking about how Florida coast is like on its way to being all under water. Which I know it is not true because I go to key Largo every year. The lot which was purchased for $6800 was sold for I think 50k. Just checked the few unbuilt comparable lots left end in that development. They are valued at about 2 million.
Oh not implying my sister was responsible for my Dad selling the lot. Just in case…
They are using outdated, impossible RCP8.5 projections, which even the rankest IPCC cheerleaders no longer accept.
Even the BBC accepts RCP8.5 is baloney!
I can’t help but be a little puzzled over the fact that the Maldives and other tourist destinations that exist in our oceans have been very popular tourist destinations and seem to be gaining in popularity. I remember the Maldives’ government expanded their 3000-foot runway airport into an International airport (Velana) a few years ago. I also note that the new construction of tourist resorts in these locations continues today, despite the fact these resorts sit on atolls (sitting just a few feet in elevation) reaching across more than 500 miles of ocean. If this is happening in a place that has served as a poster child for sea level rise, how serious is the threat of sea level rise? Seems to me the sea level has been rising at a relatively steady rate (1 – 2 mm per year), regardless of ocean temperature. The sea level rose when ocean temperature increased by 0.5 degree Celsius between 1920 and 1940, but rose at the same constant rate when ocean temperature cooled between 1945 and 1975. At least that is what some of the graphs I dug up have indicated. The sea level did not accelerate or decelerate, as some might expect. That in turn leads me to ponder just how much of sea level rise depends on ocean temperature and/or atmospheric CO2 levels. It’s just a thought as I am not a climate scientist and relatively ignorant in these matters. Admittedly, I got a little off topic, but the implications are still related to sea level rise which is germane to the article.
It was Rising a lot faster at the end of the last glaciation but its been rising slowly fot hundreds of years. It will continue to rise until the next glaciation of this current ice age.
What is going on in Australia? It seems practically communist. Isn’t it supposed to be an authority hating, egalitarian state? Why the hell should anybody not be able to build based on incorrect projections of what will happen in 100 yearns?