REC324-4319 |
26 - Research
26 - Research
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Climate and weather research: That, to enable effective mitigation and adaptation measures in response to changing climate risks, Government establish NSW as a world centre of disaster research and technology development. This should include:
• maintaining and enhancing climate and weather research capability in NSW through establishing a long-term research funding network/partnership (the NSW Climate Extremes Network – NCEN –modelled on other successful research networks such as NSSN) with the state’s universities, coordinated and led through the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes (with funding renewed based on performance every 5 years) to ensure leading-edge climate change research and modelling capabilities are available to government agencies and NSW businesses and communities. The funding will enable NCEN to hire researchers and build training programs for students and researchers to enrich the research environment, and the impact of the research in decision making within NSW
• commissioning further research and technology development (through NCEN working as appropriate with the Bureau of Meteorology, Natural Hazards Research Australia, CSIRO and research organisations worldwide, as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence in Climate Extremes) to understand the weather patterns conducive to extreme rainfall (including more detailed rainfall event attribution studies) with a view to increasing rainfall forecasting accuracy in time and location.
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REC324-4299 |
1 - Land-use and building regs
1 - Land-use and building regs
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Relocating communities most at risk with good homes and amenities: That, to empower vulnerable people and communities to relocate, Government through the NSWRA:
• identify and prioritise those communities most at risk from future disasters, and for whom relocation may be appropriate or necessary
• leverage the work done through Government’s homes, cities, manufacturing and skills policies, to collaborate and work with these communities in examining, designing, building and installing affordable, attractive and insurable housing options (e.g. locally fabricated high quality modular homes, or utilising local builders to retrofit and/or relocate existing homes to safer ground) and to enable small housing developments with capacity to grow organically over time
• utilise best-practice policy for rapid urbanism and community-building to establish new settlements. This should include:
— an enquiry-by-design or charrette process led by the Government Architect to ensure that new settlements reflect the aspirations and vernacular of the local community, whilst meeting the technical needs of establishing settlements and delivering infrastructure at low cost. This should also include considering how to repurpose floodplains for community use and benefit, i.e. recreation, sports and energy production as part of the process of returning land below the flood planning level to Government ownership. It should also consider the role of locally manufactured, well-designed and regulated modular housing solutions
— promoting a sense of community by ensuring appropriate amenity (e.g. schools, shops, and services) is available to relocating people and communities at the time of moving to their new settlements
— working with the financial and philanthropic sectors to investigate a special purpose fund to provide continuing support for these communities as they transit through re-establishment.
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REC324-4300 |
1 - Land-use and building regs
1 - Land-use and building regs
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Simplify the planning system disaster provisions: That, to simplify and improve the state planning processes especially when anticipating and recovering from a disaster, Government:
• ensure there is a clear line of sight directing councils and planning authorities to include disaster response and resilient settlement outcomes in long term strategic plans (Regional and District Plans as well as Local Strategic Planning Statements). This may require more prominence to be given to Planning for a more resilient NSW: A strategic guide to planning for natural hazards (Department of Planning, Industry and the Environment) as well as a clear link to the risk-based approach to hazard identification and the disaster adaptation plans
• ensure the NSWRA provides the necessary tools and advice to enable planning authorities to incorporate cumulative impacts of potential natural disasters into strategic plans. These tools should ensure the disaster adaptation plans can be given real effect in strategic plans for settlement and local planning controls
• ensure that Ministerial Directions on hazard and natural disasters (directions 4.1 and 4.6 inclusive) are updated to reflect the new risk-based approach to flood planning levels and deliver the disaster adaptation plans to the zoning process
• create specific flood planning provisions as a new chapter in the SEPP (Resilience and Hazards). These provisions would draw the existing flood planning clauses (5.21 and 5.22 in the standard instrument) up into the SEPP
• put the natural disaster clause (5.9 in the standard instrument) into a new chapter in the SEPP Resilience and Hazards, along with objectives to assist councils to use the clause to build back to more resilient standards
• update planning guidance so that wherever possible community facilities, such as might be used for evacuation centres, are located above the probable maximum flood and essential services are located above the flood planning level
• ensure that the strategic land use frameworks and related controls permit new developments only in line with the evacuation capacity both individually and cumulatively
• ensure that the strategic land use frameworks enable higher density flood resilient precincts to locate more development at or above the PMF and use a higher flood planning level to avoid catastrophic costs from extreme flooding, as well as deliver cost-effective controls for individual structures.
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REC324-4304 |
1 - Land-use and building regs
1 - Land-use and building regs
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Landholders can access information on previous disasters: That, to ensure there is a single source of ground truth to prepare for and respond to emergencies, and to provide people with a better understanding of their individual property and community risk exposure, an online visualisation tool be developed to display, for all land parcels (land titles) in NSW, the extent of known disasters that have affected each piece of land in NSW in the past. This information should be made available through the Planning Portal and, particularly in light of climate change, the data involved should be revised and updated at least every two years and after each major natural disaster.
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REC324-4293 |
17 - Assets and technology
17 - Assets and technology
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Essential services and floodplain infrastructure: That, to minimise disruption to essential services (power, communications, water, sewerage) and to ensure flood infrastructure is fully serviceable before flooding, Government ensure:
• essential services infrastructure (communications, water, power and sewerage) is situated as much as possible above the flood planning level. And to minimise disruption to medical services, aged care services and the police, Government ensure hospitals, medical centres, nursing homes, aged care facilities and police stations are situated above the probable maximum flood level
• floodplain infrastructure (drains, levees, flood gates) items are all assigned to an appropriate lead agency which has responsibility for ensuring they are fully maintained and functioning especially when floods are likely.
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REC324-4308 |
26 - Research
26 - Research
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Compound mental helath studies: That, to inform Government policies and programs for mental health and disasters, Government commission a longitudinal study on the effect of consecutive disasters on community mental health.
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REC324-4296 |
1 - Land-use and building regs
1 - Land-use and building regs
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Caravan parks and manufactured home estates: That, to ensure that permanent residents of caravan parks and mobile housing estates are protected from flood, Government: • prohibit permanent residency in caravan parks and mobile housing estates situated below the risk-based flood planning level. Caravan parks for holiday makers could still be on the floodplain with the provision that, if a flood is imminent, they need to be evacuated • address the issues raised in the 2015 Discussion Paper (Improving the regulation of manufactured homes, caravan parks, manufactured home estates and camping grounds).
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REC324-4312 |
17 - Assets and technology
17 - Assets and technology
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Impact to essential services: That, to minimise disruption to essential services, including outages which compromise basic communication coverage, and to ensure access to safe water supply and power during flood events, Government work directly or together with the Australian and other state governments and/or their relevant power and telecommunications regulatory, policy and market bodies to:
• ensure there are sufficient redundancy options known and made available (for example, backup diesel generators, deployed temporary telecommunications facilities, etc.) to supply power to essential telecommunication infrastructure, alternative telecommunications infrastructure and water treatment facilities.
• ensure that the telecommunication entities, electricity network providers and water treatment managers are using up to the minute, whole of catchment models to inform business continuity planning in the event of flooding
• facilitate cross carrier roaming arrangements between carriers and the public for basic text, voice and data during the period of emergency in areas directly affected by flood
• ensure all essential services are mandatory members of the Emergency Management Committees at state, regional and local levels
• ensure the state understands essential services redundancies and what emergency redundancy options are available from Australian Government agencies
• ensure, given the heavy reliance on essential services by community and government during a disaster, essential services loss, redundancy and build back better principles are exercised through emergency management committee processes annually.
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REC324-4298 |
37 - Funding
37 - Funding
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Housing and development funding options: That, to empower vulnerable people and communities to avoid significant impacts from flood as well as drive broader investment in adaptation, Government through NSWRA:
• consider establishing a NSW Mitigation Fund as a form of secured finance as a lien on title, such as rates-based or utility-based financing, to allow the Government to harness private sector monies to deliver cost-effective flood-resilient retrofits for existing dwellings
• investigate whether trading mechanisms for development rights, renegotiation with developers with existing rights, or uplift value capture to fund buy-outs could reduce existing and anticipated development in areas of greatest flood risks, with an initial focus on the Northern Rivers region and the Hawkesbury-Nepean. In doing so, Government should:
— ensure that tradeable rights facilitate the construction of additional homes in line with regional plans, in particular the Government’s six cities vision developed by the Greater Cities Commission
— fund voluntary property purchases in identified locations through the issuing of tradeable development rights
• work with the insurance industry to ensure that works are undertaken such that they would improve access to lower cost insurance products, improving upon existing guidelines from voluntary house raising schemes
• ensure that local delivery partners provide a seamless consumer experience in a cost-effective manner, whilst meeting community expectations for consumer protection and responsible lending
• consider how the NSW Mitigation Fund mechanism can address other adaptation and mitigation opportunities such as improving flood resilience for structures in areas of extreme risk and reducing emissions and bills whilst improving human health outcomes through energy efficient retrofits and home electrification.
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