By Tyler Wright
Yarra Ranges Council is preparing to amend its Erosion Management Overlay (EMO) Planning Scheme Amendment, which is predicted to be approved by the state government in around October 2024, with the exact date unknown.
The amendment may accept a permit to rebuild on a property with what the council deems as a moderate risk, with various factors included, or provide guidelines for homeowners to mitigate the risk category.
The Planning Scheme needs to be regularly updated.
“It’s done in a really considered response to what we’re observing across municipality; It’s not a single particular personal location. It’s actually some of those events where it changes the situation, so now we have to look at it and understand what that means,” Yarra Ranges Council’s Manager of Design and Place Nathan Islip said.
Yarra Ranges Council’s Executive Officer of Strategic Planning Alison Fowler said once the council has undertaken updated mapping and changes to the words in the planning scheme, the amendments will go through a public exhibition process.
“Anyone who’s affected or any landowner would be notified directly, and then they’ve got an opportunity to provide us with their feedback,” Ms Fowler said.
It comes over a year since the 2021 storm events which saw homes destroyed by fallen trees, with residents working through the rebuild and repair process.
Kalorama resident Natalie Guest and husband Lee are one family trying to rebuild after their property was damaged June 2021, with Yarra Ranges Council advising the pair it would be unlikely a planning application on their land would be accepted, given a Smolders Geotechnical Landslip Assessment Report issued on 30 March this year deemed their site a moderate landslip risk, and labelled the consequences to the property in the case of a landslip ‘catastrophic’.
The Guests’ property is within the council’s Erosion Management Overlay and a Bushfire Management Overlay, with the Yarra Ranges Council Planning Scheme establishing a ‘moderate’ risk to property, as determined in the landslip assessment report, or higher can not be accepted.
The Guests are calling on Yarra Ranges Council to amend the planning scheme so they are able to rebuild.
The last significant landslip recorded on Woodhurst Grove in Kalorama was in 1905.
“You feel like you’re on tenterhooks… even in re-imagining repairing your dream home… and inviting an architect and inviting this person and that person to talk about it and your gardens and how lovely they can be again…none of that means a bloody thing,” Ms Guest said.
It is believed there are a small number of residents across the Yarra Ranges who will not be able to rebuild on their properties after last year storm events, but the exact figure will not be known until all geo technical reports are completed.
Yarra Ranges Council’s executive officer of statutory planning Katie Douglas said regardless if it’s a rebuild, there are many lots in the Yarra Ranges that over the years – given bushfire, landslip or flood risk – are not able to be built on.
“We’ve had these conversations with lot owners before the storms…there are some lots that are environmentally in the risk factor, just too great to meet the planning standards to get approval,” Ms Douglas said.
“I wouldn’t say these conversations are unique to following the storms, it’s probably [since] 2009 where policy has caught up, education has caught up around fire activity, erosion activity and risks.”
Mr Islip, said that an overlay does not mean property owners are not able to do things on their property, but it can come to a point where it becomes “too difficult to do something to reduce the risk”.
“We can have designed responses that help to improve the resilience of our buildings, but there comes a point where it doesn’t matter what you do with that building, you’re not going to be able to get it to withstand the level of risk that it’s exposed to,” Mr Islip said.
“When we’re talking erosion management overlay, sometimes you can do really expensive engineering solutions, like screw pile down into dirt. but there comes a point where if you can’t actually get down deep enough to do that, we can’t recommend a way to resolve this, and we we can’t ignore that.”
The amendments to Yarra Ranges Council’s Erosion Management Overlay are expected to be made public in around July or August 2023.
