Amanda Leck is the Head of Adaptation, Mitigation, and Reconstruction for the NSW Reconstruction Authority. She is in Ballina for two days with the Executive Directors across her group to do some business planning and to understand what the key priorities will be going forward.

"We're working together to really refine our priorities, to be able to understand what has to be delivered within given timeframes," Ms Leck told the Lismore App

"We have many programs, particularly in the Northern Rivers, that are funded under the Disaster Recovery Funding arrangements, and they have allowable time limits, so some of our programs our time-bound and so we really need to be able to deliver all of those outcomes for the community within particular timeframes, so we really need to prioritise our efforts to get that work done. 

The biggest program the NSWRA is running is the Resilient Homes Program (RHP). Running side by side, so equally important but not as big, is the Resilient Lands Program (RLP).

As we know, following the February 2022 big flood, the RHP is the largest assisted relocation program ever funded in Australia to support the Lismore and Northern Rivers communities to be able to adapt to increased and more extreme flooding.

"The program's design is to be able to buy back homes that are at extreme risk of flooding and either relocate and or remove those homes from the floodplain as well as to be able to support community members to either raise or retrofit their home such that in a future flooding event the home is more able to be washed out, post the flood, and people can get back to living their best life as quickly as possible. That program is due to finish in June 2027. And so we have a lot of work still to do. 

Ms Leck also said the RLP does not have the same time restrictions as the RHP because it is fully funded by the NSW state government. The RHP is co-funded between the federal and state governments.

"As your readers would be aware, even prior to the floods there was not much land supply in and around the Northern Rivers and that was due to some key issues around developers not investing in opening up land for housing in the region because of the financial risk associated with that.

"So, the RLP aims to accelerate land for development for housing. We've been working with each of the seven local councils to support them with funding to be able to open up land that will be suitable for residential housing." 

One of the concerns for our community has been around the uncertainty of how the RA determines whether a house is suitable for relocation or demolition. We hear the term 'strict risk assessment', but what is involved?

"We use professionals to do a building assessment report on each of the homes. So, that is to understand, for example, the presence or absence of asbestos and other hazardous materials, the presence or absence of toxic mould for example.

"Some of these homes have been locked up for a period of time, post settlement, and so, given many of them had significant levels of floodwater or blackwater through them, some of them are mould impacted. Some of the homes are structurally unsound, so we're talking twisted beams, twisted posts, and the like that may not be immediately evident from the street. Some of the homes experienced quite significant water through them, and so they are assessed as being structurally unsound.

"Some of the homes, in terms of the risk assessment, we look at where the home is on the landscape, so it's proximity, for example, to the river and the flooding levels and velocity of water, so that we understand the risk of that home. Some of the homes that were brought back early in the program were in that highest flood risk hazard category.

"They experienced significant water through those properties, and that's why the RA prioritised those homes to be bought back early in the program. And the homes that you described in Bailley Street yesterday, are homes of that nature. The other part of the assessment is to understand if the home can be relocated, so some homes for example, are slab on ground and they're very construction materials mean that they're not able to be relocated."

In terms of numbers, Amanda Leck said that 112 homes have been assessed for demolition and that last year 30 homes were demolished. This is all part of the ongoing assessments.

"As part of the program, we know that around 156 homes are able to be relocated, and we are working on the assessment for another 374 homes at the moment." 

Some of the homes that are deemed suitable for relocation were put up for sale earlier this year through an expression of interest. Ms Leck said that 24 are going through the contracting phase. The remaining seven (7) houses may be auctioned.

"We're just looking at the best way that we can offer those homes to the community. We are hoping to bring about 20 more homes to market for the community to purchase, and those homes are currently undergoing assessment, then they will be photographed and put up online as they were through the previous program." 

There have been a number of claims made through social media that the Lismore App wanted an RA response to. They include:

CLAIM 1: The cost of demolishing a house is $110,000. Is that accurate?

"No. So, the cost of a demolition is variable based on the size of the home and the nature of the materials that are in the home. Just as a member of the community would ask for some building work to be done at home, you get a quote and that's exactly what the RA has done. Some homes do not cost that much to demolish and some homes, obviously, cost a bit more demolished depending on their size." 

"If the home has asbestos, it's more expensive because the asbestos has to be removed and wrapped and disposed of using appropriate asbestos guidelines. So, you're not able to say that every house costs a certain amount to demolish."

CLAIM 2: Our community was promised buyback homes would be relocated off the floodplain. 

"The RA has always said that we would do as much as practicable; that the RA would relocate, recycle and reuse buyback homes wherever possible. And that's innovative solutions like the relocation expression of interest to have aim to do just that. That's the first time a program like that has been run in Australia, and we wanted to do that initially to test the market to see whether community members were interested in purchasing those homes. And, in fact, we have found that is the case.

"The other thing we've allowed people to do is to gift their homes to family members or friends or neighbours and the like. Certainly, some people who have participated in the buyback program have done that, and those people who have received the home as a gift will be responsible for its relocation.

"We're also working with around 50 community members who participated in the buyback, we plan to relocate their own homes, and some of those relocations have already occurred to date with more planned.

"So there is a whole range of initiatives, if you like, that we are working through to either relocate the homes, to offer them to community members through the relocation expression of interest, the gifting policy I spoke about earlier, and then there are going to be a portion of the homes that we will need to demolish. 

CLAIM 3: No recycling, no reuse and no repurposing 

"Well, I can tell you that of the homes that we have demolished to date, more than 70% of materials have been recycled following demolition. So, we've recycled timber, meta,l concrete and organic material to date. That's 55 tonnes of metal was recycled, 883 tonnes of concrete, and 62.5 tonnes of timber have been recycled to date with that first tranche of demolitions that occurred in late 2024. So, more than a thousand tonnes of material have been recycled as part of that first tranche of demolition.

"With regard to the most recent demolition program that's underway at the moment, so the metal is being salvaged and reused where practicable, such as large beams and things like that, and transported to local scrap metal recyclers, so, InfraBuild for example.

"The timber is subject to a hygienist confirmation that there's no contamination with lead-based paint and that sort of thing, but where it can be salvaged and reused, such as large beams, for example, it is transported to local timber and or green waste recyclers. The contractor has been using the Lismore City Council Waste Transfer Station.

"And then concrete, the masonry, the bricks, the rubble, that sort of thing has been transported to licensed concrete recycling facilities for crushing and reuse and that's reused in things like road base and other Recycle concrete products."

As part of the recycle, reuse process, there has been community concern over the old Big Scrub timbers. Why aren't homes deconstructed instead of demolished?

"Deconstruction is a very expensive delivery model and can cost in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars to deconstruct homes. There are also those safety concerns I spoke about earlier with regard to the presence or absence of hazardous materials and the like.

"This is government money, and so we are trying to do this in the most cost-effective way that still delivers outcomes around recycling. The fact that we've been able to recycle more than 70% of materials to date, and we anticipate even higher recycling numbers going forward, I think, demonstrates the RA is committed to recycling materials where practicable. 

What started as a program to move the most vulnerable people from the floodplain, has also become a political 'homelessness' issue. Do you feel stuck in the middle?

"Look, I prefer not to comment on that. I'm a senior government employee and I will leave the politics to the politicians."