PLANNING along the Victorian coast is overseen by the Victorian Coastal Council (VCC). This body has the responsibility for producing a Victorian Coastal Strategy under the Coastal Management Act for long-term planning of the Victorian coast. The current strategy, written in 2002, is being revised.
A draft strategy came out nearly a year ago. I understood the final version was to be released this Friday. But speculation has it that the document landed on the doorstep of the State Treasury and it went into a spin about the implications of climate change and sea level rise predictions in the document.
It appears the strategy is being held up because the State Government has just realised climate change will have an immense impact on the Victorian coast, and these problems are no longer an abstraction. The strategy is a major planning document. Its application to planning decisions will affect billions of dollars worth of land, property and infrastructure. There was clear warning of this.
VCC chair Libby Mears last November stated that sea-level rise would be at the centre of the document. The VCC was planning for a rise of up to 80cm by 2100. Now it appears there is a great scramble for a political response to a systemic crisis, The Hollowmen style.
Once property prices and development applications might be adversely affected, they jump into action. They are less concerned with responding to silly old things like climate science and the precautionary principle that we act to mitigate environmental damage even without absolute certainty.
It is worth noting that coastal impacts are already being felt, especially in the form of erosion. Furthermore, it is increasingly likely that an 80cm sea-rise by 2100 is wishful, if not fanciful, thinking. Sea-level rise will more likely be measured in metres not centimetres, given the feedback consequences of events such as the melting of Arctic ice. This point is made in detail in the Carbon Equity submission to the draft coastal strategy.
A further important point is made by Deakin University's Geoff Westcott in his submission that a prospective planning crisis is emerging on the coast as climate change impacts combine with development pressures. Rates of development approvals in coastal areas have been significantly higher than inland in our region consistent with the seachange phenomenon.
There seems to be little or no political will to deal with it, at state or local government levels, whether by fixed coastal town boundaries, a development moratorium or strategic retreat from the coast. I guess we'll see when the final strategy emerges from Treasury.
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2008/09/11/18182_opinion.html