‘IT’S FLOODY WRONG’
THE engineer behind two of the city’s ritziest real estate havens says council’s flood mapping is outdated and will cause unnecessary insurance hikes for residents. John Bate claims a map showing properties at The Sovereign Islands and Ephraim Island underwater in the event of a 100-year flood is “blatantly incorrect”.
THE engineer who built and designed two of the city’s ritziest real estate havens says council’s flood mapping is outdated and will cause unnecessary insurance hikes for residents.
John Bate has questioned why council has released a map “so blatantly incorrect”, showing multimillion-dollar properties at The Sovereign Islands and Ephraim Island underwater in the result of a 100year flood.
Up to 300 of 651 properties on the Sovereign Islands, north of its connecting bridge to Paradise Point, are impacted by the outdated flood overlay map provided with City Plan documents.
Some insurance companies say home owners with properties at a significantly higher flood level will be asked to pay higher premiums. Northern Coast residents have received increased quotes.
Mr Bate has written to council planning committee chair Cameron Caldwell and a senior council planning officer in natural hazards about the maps.
“I am still seriously concerned that the interactive mapping, which is the way anyone in public can check flood maps – and I might add are the maps used in Gold Coast Bulletin articles – is still not giving correct information,” he wrote to Cr Caldwell.
“My question is, how can anything produced by council’s officers be so blatantly incorrect and be put out to the public as gospel for so long and nobody cares.”
Councillor Caldwell, in a statement yesterday, said: “Council’s new flood modelling and mapping accurately reflects that Sovereign Islands and Ephraim Island are flood free.”
Mr Bate told the planning officer that mapping used “pre-development natural ground levels” when land was later built up for homes.
“The interactive flood model in the City Plan is still outdated and using pre-2000 base data and therefore indicating significant areas of very up-market development is below flood,” he wrote.
“As the story in the paper highlighted, people on the Gold Coast will be severely disadvantaged by insurance companies who, in this case, are fed the wrong information.”
A Sovereign Island mansion has cost up to $22 million to build and properties on streets such as Royal Albert Crescent – one of Australia’s most prestigious addresses – regularly fetch more than $10 million.
Mr Bate said insurance companies would call up the council’s flood overlay map and not take the extra step of investigating individual property lots.
The council officer told Mr Bate the flood overlay map was developed in 2000. Work on developing The Sovereign Islands finished in late 2004.
“This map was prepared prior to the development of Sovereign Islands,” the officer wrote.
The council had updated its mapping from 2014 to include a projected increase in sea level of 0.8m by 2100 as required by the State Government.
The mapping also included a “projected 10 per cent storm tide intensity and 10 per cent rainfall intensity’’, based on industry advice.
But the council officer admitted the updated flood overlay mapping was being reviewed and had to be signed off by the Government as part of changes to the City Plan.
The council had updated its flood search service and database to provide an accurate assessment of risk to individual properties, the officer said.
“As part of the insurance queries therefore, this indicative flood search report can be accessed and used until the new flood map is approved by the State Government and officially included in the City Plan,” the officer wrote.
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has called on the council to provide riverine flood models and data for inclusion in the National Flood Information Database to help fine-tune premiums.