We’ve seen some shocking images from Wamberal this week, reminding us of the pounding storms of 2016 which caused such incredible damage to waterfront properties at Collaroy.

Since those terrible days, Council has been working hard to change policies and remove some of the red tape that stood in the way of private property owners being able to build a wall to protect their own properties. 

The issues have been complex and many. The main sticking point has been that a sea wall has the potential to damage not just the public beach it sits on or next to, but also to push the problem down the beach, causing the same issue for other residents or other public assets.

In fact for these reasons, State government rules don’t allow people to just go ahead and build a sea wall without taking all of these issues into account. In order to support residents through this complicated process Council stepped in to commission numerous and costly technical studies, undertake a great deal of lobbying and develop a whole new local coastal management system to get to a place where residents can now legally take action to protect their homes.

Of course, the costs to construct a structure that will withstand the shifting sands and pounding waves, likely in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, is also a big ask for many of the residents at risk which is why Council and State Government have offered additional funding support to assist these residents in fixing this decades-old problem.

So where are we today?

Since early 2017, we have a new coastal management system which does allow all residents to do property protection works with DA approval, with some conditions applied to protect the long term integrity of the public beach and other neighbours. Property owners who need to come forward on to part of the public beach, also need to seek approval from the State government to use public land.

Along the Collaroy strip, 24 properties now have approved DAs, 4 are under assessment and 21 are still to make a submission to Council. 

We understand 10 of those properties with approvals are on track to have the protection works in place by Christmas.

The outstanding 4 DAs are likely to be resolved within weeks. Council continues to urge those who have not yet submitted to get their applications in as soon as they can. 

Thanks to extensive lobbying, there is also a grant system now in place that provides residents with funding support for up to 20% of the value of the works - 10% provided by Council and another 10% by the NSW Government. Property owners have been able to apply for this assistance since June 2019.

It has been a long process but at Council we believe we have done everything in our power to support the residents to get to this point and ensure they have legal standing to protect their properties from another storm like we experienced in 2016.   

Learn more about the process and see the timeline.