Myers v South Gippsland Shire Council

COURT OR TRIBUNAL

Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal

DATE FILED (OR FIRST HEARING DATE)

13/05/2009

LITIGATION TYPE

Project Approval - Adaptation

SUBJECT MATTER

Coastal hazard

REVIEW TYPE

Merits review

SUMMARY

Myers sought review of a council's decision to permit the subdivision of a coastal property on a number of grounds including inundation and flooding due to climate change induced sea level rise. The Tribunal based its decision on three key coastal planning policy documents released after the Council had made its decision. These documents required a precautionary approach to be taken to account for climate change-related coastal hazards. The Tribunal held that there was insufficient information to adequately assess the impact of climate change on the proposed development and ordered the preparation of a coastal hazard vulnerability assessment for determination of the application.

In the second judgment, as required by the Tribunal in an earlier hearing, the permit applicant engaged an expert coastal engineer to prepare a coastal hazard vulnerability assessment. The assessment identified that by 2100, there would be no dune, no road and no access to the site due to inundation by sea level rise and storm surges. Based on this assessment, the state-wide coastal planning policy requiring a precautionary approach to development due to the impacts of climate change and the absence of any local planning policy to provide specifically local guidance, VCAT decided not to grant the permit. In obiter, the VCAT suggests that a regional approach to assessing impact of climate change on coastal area would be preferable.

CASE DOCUMENTS

Myers v South Gippsland Shire Council (No 1) [2009] VCAT 1022
Myers v South Gippsland Shire Council (No 2) [2009] VCAT 2414