A block of land in New South Wales’s northern rivers that flooded earlier this year was deemed suitable for house victims of the same disaster so long as only their “feet would get wet” if another deluge swamped the site.
The state’s Department of Planning and Environment’s deputy secretary, Brett Whitworth, on Monday told a parliamentary hearing the Mullumbimby site was taken “outside the planning system” in a bid to get the site secured and temporary housing built more quickly.
The site, where 60 pods are being built, has raised concerns from some residents who believe fill brought into the site to raise it above the flood level will impact water flows next time the town is inundated.
After Guardian Australia had reported on the temporary housing issues, the premier, Dominic Perrottet, visited the site earlier this month to hear from local councillor Duncan Dey – a civil engineer specialising in flood analysis – and Greens MP Tamara Smith.
His visit came just days after Resilience NSW told residents that “a full flood study is not required for this development and will not be undertaken” on the vacant crown land site.
When questioned by the opposition’s housing spokesperson, Rose Jackson, about the site’s selection, Whitworth told budget estimates there was an urgency around securing a site and getting it approved.
“Because of the emergency nature of getting these temporary sites up and running, we effectively took them outside the planning system,” said Whitworth, who was involved in the early stages of the project.
“We used the housing state environmental planning policy to effectively designate them as caravan parks, provided they were created by a government authority for the purposes of housing displaced people from the flood.”
Whitworth said government officials discussed ways to mitigate flood risk for the site, which was underwater during the February and March flooding events. Parts of the site were ruled out due to their risk level.
“There were some parts of the site that were too flood-prone and they shouldn’t have any temporary housing on them at all,” he said.
Whitworth said, for other parts of the site where there could be “flood affectation”, pods could be raised on piers.
“If those pods were used, and they were raised on piers … people’s feet would get wet, but it wouldn’t be any worse than that,” he told the hearing.
He said it was then decided that putting in piers was too costly and too difficult, which led to the use of fill to raise the site.
Works on the land, located in the centre of town, began in July, days after residents were first notified that it had been selected to host flood victims.
The site has since been layered with between 80cm and 1.5 metres of fill, according to a Resilience NSW document circulated to residents earlier this month.
