Councillor calls for urgent action before houses "fall into the ocean"

A South Gippsland councillor has questioned the intelligence of locals who want to erect houses in areas at risk of erosion.

“Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution has now fallen by the wayside, people are dumb enough to build houses now where they’ll fall into the ocean, if we don’t stop them through overlays,” said Councillor Scott Rae during the South Gippsland Shire council meeting on Wednesday (March 19).

In order to prevent development in high-risk coastal areas that could be prone to erosion, the council is attempting to push the State Government to commit to a new coastal hazard overlay, an erosion management mapping tool that identifies areas prone to landslides, hazards and erosion.

Councillors believe the dynamic nature of coastal erosion has left the current mapping in need of an update.

Councillor Sarah Gilligan said that “in Mornington Peninsula we know they have a whole level of houses that are starting to slip down the hill”.

She said updated mapping would also support “our emergency service volunteers in terms of trying to make sure we’re not putting more people in vulnerable places. A coastal hazard overlay will also inform communities about the inherent and increasing risks that come with dynamic low-lying coastal areas”.

The councillor said South Gippsland was in a good position to get ahead of the problem due to its largely undeveloped coastline.

“It’s a motion that I’m hoping will unite all of our local coastal councils.”

Councillor Nathan Hersey said he had invited Planning Minister Sonia Kilkenny to South Gippsland to see the issue first hand.

“What we need to see here is the State Government stepping up and playing their part in planning in a coordinated way across Victoria,” he said.

The councillors voted to call on the Allan government to urgently prepare state-wide vulnerability mapping, coastal hazard overlay or a strengthened erosion management overlay for all vulnerable coastal areas in Victoria.