Council
12 August, 2026
EXCLUSIVE Letter to the Editor: Act in haste repent at leisure - Bowral South -quick decisions bring long regret.
From Theo Onisforou. I refer to Council’s Media Statement and the resolution of the Flood Plain Meeting of 3 August 2026. Whilst there is still a long way to go, the speed with which the Council is proceeding with the Bowral South subdivision is breathtaking. I wish a simple DA could be resolved as quickly as this rezoning is proceeding.
I refer to Council’s Media Statement and the resolution of the Flood Plain Meeting of 3 August 2026.
Whilst there is still a long way to go, the speed with which the Council is proceeding with the Bowral South subdivision is breathtaking. I wish a simple DA could be resolved as quickly as this rezoning is proceeding.
I consider myself a bit of an expert on flood prone land. I had the displeasure of lodging a development application for a building on flood prone land with the Wingecarribee Shire Council not that long ago. The Council experts were adamant that the development should not proceed on flood prone land.
Times are certainly changing quickly.
What I learnt from that failed attempt includes:
1. You cannot overcome flooding problems by simply raising the height of the land to above the 100 year flood level by landfill. The simple reason is that what it does is move the problem and increase the flooding further downstream, ie. passing the buck downstream.
2. If landfill was to occur, then the water would accelerate past the filled land and more likely inundate the land further along.
3. The additional buildings mean less natural absorption and hence greater flooding downstream.
I must now ask, has Council obtained any legal advice on the following possibilities:
1. The owners of land further downstream suing Council for the rezoning which has caused their land to suffer greater flood damage than it would have suffered if not for the landfill.
2. If at some time in the future the inevitable occurs and the houses on the flood prone land flood, are the owners of those houses able to sue Council based upon their haste in rezoning of flood prone land into supposedly flood free land?
The undoubted expert on flooding is Drew Bewsher, author of the Bowral Floodplain Risk Management Study and Plan (FRMS&P) (2009) and who initially drafted Council’s flood controls which appear in the present Bowral Town Plan DCP.
It is curious (maybe illogical) that Council’s past accepted expert has not been asked to provide his expert opinion on Council’s proposed flooding solution as a necessary precondition to rezoning of Bowral South flood prone land, to high density residential, by landfill.
If Council is not able to afford to pay for Mr Bewsher’s expert opinion on this very important issue, and presuming Council refuses to obtain legal advice on whether a non-property developer could pay for such a report for Council, perhaps Mr Bewsher might be asked if he would give his opinion for free to Council, because he was very kind, generous and civic minded when I met with him for me to better understand flood prone land. He did not invoice me.
Meanwhile, obviously there is within the Wingecarribee Shire many pieces of land that are flood prone.
If Council resolves that a flooding problem can be solved with landfill, how will Council deal with all future development applications on flood prone land, where developers all cite Council’s recent attempt at rezoning of Bowral South by landfill.
All future developers of flood prone land will undoubtedly propose that they simply raise the level of their flood prone land with fill.
Precedent is often a difficult argument to overcome.
I strongly believe that the haste with which this matter is progressing can inevitably only lead to regret in the future.
I respectfully and COURTEOUSLY request the Council PLEASE slow down, do not be in a hurry and let’s invite more than one flooding expert to comment on this important issue, because my unfortunate experience with experts when I was a practicing barrister at law specialising in Local Government, is that you can almost always inevitably find an expert that will agree with you, provided of course you pay their fee.
For the record, Council did not offer to pay for my flood studies for my proposed development.
I am now wondering whether Council doing the expensive flood studies for these owners/ developers, will become a precedent and will lead to other owner/developers asking for Councils throughout NSW to pay for their development studies in the future.
I wonder if any other NSW Council has paid for such studies to the benefit of developers?? I would love to know the answer to that question?
Thank you,
Theo Onisforou
Retired Barrister at Law / AVO survivor
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