In his letter in CCN 2024, Craig Hillman is correct in saying that “Woy Woy town centre experiences low level flooding” and that Woy Woy is not a suitable growth corridor.
The unelected Council under administration is definitely at odds with the NSW Flood Risk Management Manual; this was reinforced when they voted to remove the Woy Woy Flood blackspot policy that was passed by Gosford Council as “it would not be appropriate to allow development to occur and seek contributions to further works” as the policy determined the nature of the problem of flooding in the blackspot zone was unlikely to be fixed.
The point Mr Hillman is incorrect about is his comment on unspecified sea level rise component.
This level has been well known since the 2009 State Government policy on sea level rise benchmarks and was incorporated in the flood risk management guide.
This level was also confirmed in the 2012 assessment of sea-level rise by the State Government chief scientist and engineer and updates have been stated in recent IPCC and CSIRO reports.
The question that needs to be addressed is: When will the planning system catch up with the climate science and start implementing adaptive policies related to all low lying areas within the Brisbane Water catchment that will be inundated with rising sea levels?
Email, Jul 8
Mark Ellis, Woy Woy
My comment regards “unspecified sea level rise” is misinterpreted by Mr Ellis, he is not privy to the correspondence to which I refer.
I am aware of Council’s adopted sea level rise policy for Gosford being 73cm/2100 and 20cm/2050 – Noting the Wyong end of the Coast has a completely different sea level rise policy.
I further note the State policy Mr Ellis refers to was subsequently and rather quickly withdrawn by the previous State Labor government.
To clarify my remarks, the council correspondence mentions a “sea level rise” component but offers no timeframe and as such it is not possible to identify what level of sea level rise they are applying to the decision to which I refer.
To be specific, Council have advised me that the mandated “evacuation path” for a particular development is compliant however won’t be under “future sea level rise” so without specifying a time frame it is impossible to say if they are looking forward 10 years, 100 years or 1000 years.
Despite repeated requests to Council to clarify its position as stated in correspondence they have declined to do so.
The fact remains we have a State government intent on intensification of residential development in Woy Woy and a Council apparently intent on stopping them.