Moorebank Voluntary Acquisition Scheme: Council’s push for government funds to buy properties
A scheme to buy out flood risk homes in Sydney’s southwest has stalled, leaving residents stuck as water levels continue to rise. After 38 years, find out why the buyback is far from finished.
Liverpool
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An underfunded scheme to buy out flood-risk homes in southwest Sydney is stalling, leaving residents stuck in properties with a rising risk of damage and death.
Introduced 38 years ago, the Moorebank Voluntary Acquisition Scheme allows Liverpool Council to purchase homes in the Moorebank floodway area of the Georges River beyond the Milperra Bridge, including Rickard Rd, Newbridge Drive, and Davy Robinson Dr, with funding from the state government.
But after acquiring 99 properties in the first 20 years, less than 20 have been acquired since 2004. And it’s only moving slower and slower.
Since 2013, only five more properties have been purchased.
Frustratingly for residents, the only pinch point is funding, as the scheme was originally budgeted for 1984 house prices.
In the past 10 years, only $3.2 million has been provided to Liverpool City Council from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment to purchase homes.
That’s around $300,000 a year. Not enough to buy one third of a home.
For every $2 the state government spends, Liverpool Council is expected to spend $1, despite the vast gap in resources between them both.
The scheme was introduced in 1984 after research into the flood plain found the only reasonable way to mitigate damage and danger for Moorebank residents would be to remove the houses, and that the land should never have been developed.
Since then, 55 of the 175 identified properties are yet to be acquired.
At the current rate, with one acquisition every two years, families would still be cleaning out flooded homes past 2084, 100 years after the state and local governments agreed to buy out the homes.
John Maddocks was employed with NSW Public Works when the scheme was first created in 1984, before moving into the private sector as a contractor on flood mitigation projects.
He’s written several reports on Georges River flooding, and works with all councils by the river on flood planning.
He says if the remaining houses aren’t removed, there is a real risk of people drowning, or houses being washed away.
“This is an area that is the first to flood. Even in a minor flood, you have water going over this land,” Mr Maddocks said.
The floods of the past three years are still relatively minor compared to the highest on record, back in 1873.
If the same level of flooding was to happen today, two storey homes in the area would be completely submerged, Mr Maddocks said.
“When that large flood does occur, there will be a lot more damage and danger to the people that remain in this floodway,” he said.
Meanwhile, extreme weather events, including flooding, will only become more likely as a result of a warming climate.
Bernard King is one of the people who remains, and he’s been stuck cleaning out his flooded home once again while he waits for an offer. He’s been living on the bank of the Georges River for 65 years and said the flooding was only getting worse.
As southwest Sydney families begin their third flood clean up in four months, the frustration is evident.
— Paul Brescia (@pwbrescia) July 4, 2022
Bernard King has lived in his home for 65 years, and says climate change is making floods worse. #sydneyfloodspic.twitter.com/nSWmo6kHiS
Once the water started rising in the latest floods, it was less than two hours before it reached his waist height.
“They run faster. It’s probably due to climate change, and all the new buildings and developments up Brickmakers Drive,” Mr King said.
According to Mr King, offers for nearby homes have been too low for years, which is why many still live there.
Risks increase as clock ticks
As more homes are acquired and demolished, the flat ground left behind puts the remaining residents at a higher risk.
As Mr Maddocks explains, the removal of fences and buildings in the area which would normally act as a buffer, means when flood waters rise, they rise faster.
For the people that remain in the area, the voluntary acquisition scheme also prohibits them from making any alterations to their homes to make them safer to live in.
The original justification was that any additions made to homes in the area would make them more valuable, and thus, more expensive to purchase under the acquisition scheme.
That’s why Rabia Taslak was denied her application to raise the level of her Newbridge Rd home after flooding in 2020.
In March, her home flooded again, and her family moved out.
The walls were stripped and the house was in the process of being repaired when the river rose again in the beginning of July, bringing water into their home once more.
“My house is gone now. There’s no way to describe it,” Ms Taslak said, describing the stench and mould left behind.
But while people have been prevented from modifying their homes under the justification it would cost the government more to acquire them, property prices have skyrocketed.
Rising property market slows acquisitions
It cost $16 million to purchase the first 99 homes in the scheme between 1984 and 2004.
In 2004, consultants said it would cost $30 million to acquire the remaining 71 properties, noting “recent price rises in the property market”. That is an average cost of $422,000 per home.
The average house price in Moorebank today, according to realestate.com.au, is more than $1.2 million, and has grown by 25 per cent in the past five years alone.
Before the house price rises, spending $2 million per year — which is what was assumed in 2004 — would have allowed the scheme to be completely finished by 2019, before the 2020 floods.
Liverpool Council mayor Ned Mannoun has said the council simply does not have enough money to purchase the homes any faster.
Significant funding would be needed from state and federal governments to have a mass scale acquisition of the remaining 55 properties.
Mr Mannoun said council was writing to the state and federal governments to ask for more money.
Meanwhile, the NSW government has announced an inquiry into the flood response and recovery. The inquiry is supposed to consider current and future land use planning and management, building standards in flood prone areas, and how to adapt to future flood risks.
It’s unclear what the inquiry would tell the residents within the acquisition zone that they don’t already know.
The NSW Government has known the area is too risky for people to live in since at least 1984.
As for where Moorebank resident Mr King plans on moving when his home is acquired, he only has one demand.
“On the top of a hill.”
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