Flood-affected residents want option to relocate their homes

In a new series, NBN News is highlighting the efforts to rebuild the flood-ravaged Northern Rivers community. Here, Olivia Grace-Curran and Gracie Richter are looking at whether Lismore’s historic homes can be relocated.

Historic, hundred-year-old homes in flood-ravaged Lismore would be shifted to safer pastures in a proposal which would allow residents to live in their beloved houses and out of harm’s way, while preserving the town’s cultural heritage.

Lismore South resident Harper Dalton-Earles is spearheading community group Relocate Lismore Homes and believes it is an option that has been largely left out of conversations surrounding the future of the flood-prone region.

“I care deeply about what happens to our historical homes and the cultural value they add to the region,” Dalton-Earles told 9News.

“I don’t think the whole of town should be relocated – but I definitely think that the people in the worst flood-affected areas should be offered the option to relocate their homes.

“There’s places for buybacks, land swaps and some people want to raise their houses – all of these things should be on the table.

“My concern is there is no discussion about relocating our historic homes to higher ground.”

The flood-affected residents want options – some would like to see a land swap and to relocate their houses.

Others are calling for a buyback, like Queensland’s $750 million scheme, to help rebuild, sell, or flood-proof their homes.

Race against time as double weather threat looms

Built in 1910, Dalton-Earles estimates his heritage home has experienced more than a dozen floods.

Unprotected by the levee bank, the property is impacted by just moderate flooding.

Extra height would have made no difference in this year’s disaster.

“It still would have flooded based on the February flood height – at the highest I could legally raise it,” he said.

“To realistically relocate this home I’m looking at about $45,000 – to raise it I’m looking at between $80,000 and $100,000.”

It’s now a race against time, with a negative Indian Ocean Dipole event underway and a 50 per cent chance of a third La Niña forming later this year.

“I’m renovating my kitchen with the fear that it could flood next month,” he said.

“If I raise the home, I could still have a shipping container or a car run into the side of it.”

The third-generation Lismore local says house relocation is not a new concept, but a part of the town’s history.

“Historically after every major flood, 1954 flood, the 1974 flood, houses have been relocated,” he told 9News.

“(My grandparent’s) house was relocated out of the flood plain to up in Goonellabah.”

Lismore City Council this week voted unanimously in favor of a motion to acknowledge flood-affected residents’ desire for house relocations, buybacks and land swaps, after originally voting against the submission in June.

Dalton-Earles says it’s a small win, but for now, bureaucratic red tape continues to hold him back from taking any action.

“We need a voice to discuss these ideas as a realistic option and the government needs to pay attention,” he said.

“I’ve done all of the research, I could literally (move my house) next week if the government on all levels were a part of this discussion and involved.

“Right now, it’s basically live here or be homeless – that’s the situation I’m faced with and many are faced with.”

The motion by Lismore Greens Councilor Adam Guise passed with an amendment for council to also lobby state and federal government agencies for their support.

“People need certainty and an understanding of what they’re to do with their flood-impacted lives,” Guise said.

“There will be people who will want to remain on the floodplain – or can’t leave the floodplain.

“We should be investigating alternative solutions such as house raising, floating houses on pontoons, and more flood-resilient designs, so we don’t have the waste or the damage that we’ve had in the past.”

Guise says he is motivated by the threat of climate change and further severe weather.

“We can’t just rest on our hands and think this isn’t going to happen again or somehow think we’ve got time,” he said.

“For those of us currently living on the floodplain, a third La Niña keeps us awake at night,” Guise admitted.

“I dread what it would do…if we get another megaflood.

“I dread what it would do to the spirit of our town.

“It would absolutely break our town.

“Many people would be so broken, they would walk away.”

Lismore City Council has identified land in Goonellabah as a potential site to relocate flood-affected residents, but ultimately says the decision lies with the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation.

Robyn wants her home back – but not where it is

Robyn Murray and her husband are living in Ballina while they wait for information to work out what is next.

“We’re all suffering with anxiety from the floods and we’re unsure as to where we are, what we’re going to do – we’re living in limbo,” she told 9News.

Murray is also interested in the possibility of shifting her older-style home to higher ground.

“We bought (our home) because it had so much character – an old Queenslander with French doors, all the beautiful trims that you get with the old Queenslanders,” she said.

“We would love it to be moved to an area where it doesn’t flood.

“It doesn’t deserve to be where it is.

“We just feel that the house deserves better.

“Moving it to higher ground would give us some piece of mind as well because we’re not young.

“Every time we feel a raindrop now, we stress.”

The couple’s house, which is two meters off the ground, experienced 2.8 meters of water above the floorboards in this year’s big flood.

The thought of a potential third La Niña terrifies them.

“It scares the life out of me – just now, I’m very anxious talking to you about it,” she said.

“I want my home back, but I just don’t want to be there.

“I just don’t want to be in that location anymore.”

Fears families have no choice but to move back to danger zone

Jenna Breeze, her husband and their five-year-old daughter are living in Casino until they have enough information to make a decision on their future in Lismore.

“Our house is above the one-in-one-hundred-year level, it’s up on stilts… the water went to head-height inside the house,” she said.

“I don’t know if (the government) should be spending millions of dollars on flood mitigation.

“This has been happening in this town for like 200 years.”

The young family’s preference is a land swap – but fear they will have no option but to move back into the danger zone.

“I honestly think we won’t have a choice, we will have to move back in,” she said.

“We can’t rent anywhere else, we can’t buy anywhere else.

“There’s nowhere else to go other than to move away and remove ourselves from this community that we’re a part of.

“I just want to see a change and I feel like the town needs to move, maybe they keep the CBD where it is, but let’s move the residents up the hill.”

‘Who is leading us out of this?’

Crystal Lenane is ensuring East Lismore isn’t left out of the conversation.

“I’ve started the East Lismore Action Group,” she said.

“We’re not in the conversation at the moment.

It’s usually north and south.

“I think it should be fair across the board.

“We’ve all been impacted the same. We’ve all lost our homes.”

The local moved into the suburb with her family following the 2017 floods, assured it was flood-proof.

“Our street had never, ever been underwater – none of the houses,” she said.

Prior to this year’s disaster, the family had spent all of their savings on raising their home, not for flood purposes – but to construct a garage.

“We raised our floors to three meters, which is over two meters above what it was, and we still got a meter (of water) through our house,” she said.

“Are we going to put more money back into this property? We’re getting no direction.

“What is going to happen to Lismore? It’s all rumors – I’m hearing all different things everyday and it really needs to be cleared up.

“I don’t think it’s good enough.”

Lenane says the Resilience NSW debacle has made the situation even more unsettling for residents in limbo.

“It just seems like it’s a mess and no one is leading the ship. Who’s leading us out of this? I don’t know,” she said.

“I would like to know our options.

“After the floods, me and my husband were like, ‘We want to rebuild, we want to stay in the community’.

“Five months on, we’re losing that sense of community and I’m saying to my husband, ‘I want to go – I want to leave, I can’t invest back into this town when nobody is giving us any information. ‘”

The thought of returning home is ‘scary’

Jenny Gibbons would rather just say goodbye to her flood-ravaged home.

“I don’t even like going back there to fix things up – I just don’t like being there,” she said.

“I just feel like I haven’t got a home anywhere at the moment.

“I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me – and a lot of unknowns.”

Like many, she’s in limbo at the moment and is living with friends awaiting further information from the state government.

“I’m just waiting to find out what’s happening, what kind of land deals or swaps or whatever,” she said.

“I’d really like a buyback because I don’t want to be there anymore.

“The thought of going home is just really scary.

“I don’t even like going back there to fix things up – I just feel like I haven’t got a home anywhere at the moment.”

Her home, too, was supposed to be safe from a one-in-one-hundred-year flood.

“Got a meter above the one in one-hundred-year flood (mark),” she said.

“Been through floods there before, no problem at all.

“But this one just kind of came out of nowhere and kept on rising.”

It comes after an Upper House report into the February-March disaster laid bare the bungles.

The inquiry also made 37 recommendations, including:

The parliamentary inquiry also found the Bureau of Meteorology and other agencies were not prepared for, nor did they comprehend, the scale of the February-March floods.

It was told the data they were receiving and publishing was not accurate.