EVERY new beachside home, coastal apartment block and piece of
infrastructure on the coastline of NSW would have to be re-examined under
a State Government draft policy on rising sea levels.
The draft
document, to be released today, contains guidelines for local councils
which say the impact of rising sea levels should be assessed "over the
life of an asset", meaning that long-term developments would need to take
sea-level rise into account for decades into the future.
The policy will put developers and insurance companies on notice that
scientific advice from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and
the CSIRO is now the state's benchmark, and that this can be updated as
scientific predictions change. The benchmark says sea levels in NSW can be
expected to rise up to 40 centimetres by 2050. This would affect many
thousands of homes and subject low-lying areas to the "Venice effect",
according to an earlier State Government report on the issue. It would
lead to worse flooding and damage to coastal infrastructure, the
Government said.
It is not clear how the policy will effect a controversial section in
the Government's Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, which allows
the State Government to have the final say on large developments and
override council planning laws.
That section of the act - part 3A - attracted criticism this week when
it became clear developers were using it to trump local government
planning restrictions on building in bushfire prone areas.
However, the Government said there would be no regulatory or statutory
requirement for developments to comply with the rising sea level
benchmarks.