Wollongong City Council will vote on Monday on whether to finally ditch its controversial and much-criticised flood mapping policy.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In a meeting which could be the council’s last before it is merged with Shellharbour, councilors may set the long-awaited blockage review into action, changing the way flood risk is modelled for the city.
This follows a review of how council deals with culvert and drain blockage in flood events.
Residents with insurance premiums artificially inflated because of the council’s flawed policy will still have to wait for relief. But council has proposed property certificates would be amended to include information that “flood levels may change”.
The new modelling methods recommended by the council’s consultant would differentiate between four different types of drains, with each given a different estimate of blockage.
But the review process has revealed some of the flaws with council’s current flood mapping model, which dictated that any drain less than 6m across would be treated as being 100 per cent blocked in a significant flood event.
Perhaps most glaring of the flaws was the use of visual estimates, rather than actual water blockage, when assessing how culverts were blocked after the 1998 floods.
“It is important to recognise that the mount of hydraulic blockage that occurs in a flood can be significantly different from the visual blockage observed during or after a flood,” the consultant’s final report states.
Council continued to use these observations, and a “one size fits all” approach to drain blockage, well after experts advised council of the problems with its policy.
The result has been hundreds of homes which have never flooded have been mapped as having a “high” flood risk, driving up insurance premiums and making renovations harder.
Council has defended its policies as necessary to deal with the risk of drains blocking and making flooding worse, in a city whose unique geography made it particularly vulnerable to flood events.
Monday’s meeting will consider an implementation plan for the blockage policy review, including rewriting flood studies and floodplain management plans.