Retreating from Wamberal could cost up to $1B

Between $500M to $1B would be needed in today’s money to buy back Wamberal beachfront homes.

Investigating planned retreat from Wamberal Beach and The Entrance North is one of the key actions of Central Coast Council’s draft Coastal Management Program (CMP) which is currently on public exhibition.

The draft states that mechanisms for planned retreat include: planning controls such as time-limited occupation and relocatable buildings; buy-back of properties at risk, and landward relocation of at-risk infrastructure.

But the report reckons that buying back properties along Wamberal Beach alone is estimated at $500M to $1B. 

Other costs would include demolition of buildings, disposal to landfill and dune restoration costs.

It adds that Council does not have the resources or powers to acquire private properties that are at risk from coastal hazards.

But it says that limiting development in high risk areas via Council development controls would mean urban development becomes less exposed to coastal hazards over time with a gradual retreat from areas at highest risk.

The key action in the CMP is to “investigate and develop a Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategy for affected coastal communities”.

“This action recognises that even with active intervention in areas that are currently at the highest risk from coastal hazards (e.g. Wamberal and The Entrance North), the risk will eventually become so great that it cannot be reduced to a tolerable level by interventions such as engineering works, and that some form of retreat or relocation from the high risk area may be necessary in the future,” the draft states on page 108.

It says the planned retreat or managed retreat approach recognises that coastal processes and coastline hazards are impacting on the coastline, and that the nature of this impact is likely to worsen in the future. 

“As the impact of coastline hazards worsens, and in the absence of actions to change likelihood of risk, the ability of the community to maintain infrastructure and keep existing properties in their current locations begins to decline. 

“Infrastructure such as water supply, electricity and sewer becomes increasingly exposed to coastal erosion, and eventually it will be more difficult to maintain services for some of the more exposed seaside properties”.

A retreat option provides a strategy for gradual movement of infrastructure inland to avoid potential threats.

The CMP states that Council is aware of the current action in the State Disaster Mitigation Plan to develop a State policy for large-scale multi-hazard managed relocation and will continue to work with the NSW Government on what this means for the Central Coast.

The CMP is on public exhibition until August 25: https://www.yourvoiceourcoast.com/our-coast-our-waterways/open-coast

Merilyn Vale