Last week SBPs Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Corley, the man with 15 years experience in disaster recovery, spoke about the need to define success and what that looks like.

"If we don't have a definition of where we're trying to get to and when we're trying to get there, we're just putting energy into recovery without really understanding progress. So, we have to define success," Mr Corley said.

He went on to say that, usually, the first 12 months after a disaster is the rescue and recovery phase. Year two is when the community has more time and is more open to starting the conversation about envisioning what people want their communities to look like in another 10 or 20 years' time.

It has taken a major natural disaster to be in this position but Lismore has a clean slate with substantial government funding to reimagine and rebuild our city.

On Saturday, NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey met with Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin, NRRCs Kieron Hendicott and LCC Councillors Peter Colby, Andrew Bing and Big Rob. The Lismore App asked who is coordinating a Lismore City Vision and what progress has been made.

Councillor (Cr) Peter Colby said that councillors have had a couple of sessions, "We're working closely with the Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) now and developing a strategy to go forward."

"Basically, the fundamental issue is now to actually build the profile of the design panels. The problem you have is you can come up with all the ideas, you build the framework, but then you've got to take all the people in the community on the journey. So the next step effectively is to say well, okay, you build the framework of what you think the future of Lismore looks like over the next 20 years, you know, with university, all the transportation, all those sorts of things, but what you actually have to do is engage with all the community to make sure that they feel part of that and are engaged in the process."

Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin added, "There is a plan under development or an approach about how to engage but engage technical experts like international best practices so that we don't just have everybody out there going I want this, I want that, so, some frame around it. These are the things that can be done, these are the things you can do. And also, realistically, no government anywhere is going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars so we've got to do it in a bit of a rational way as well, but still set our bar high."

NRRCs Kieron Hendicott added, "We've been working directly with council in terms of scoping that out and developing that approach and essentially putting meat on the bones in terms of how we can roll that out. We'll have more to say about that with council as that starts to crystalise over the coming weeks and months."

Cr Big Rob wasn't involved with the process at the start but is happy with what he is seeing now.

"In terms of recent, these guys have put together a package that is highly community focused. So there's going to be a lot of community consultation."

Ms Saffin added, "We all talk about a community-led recovery, community led to me is community-driven, and we put the community's desires and needs before the government and the agencies then we know that they'll consider them seriously. We might not get everything that we desire, but that's for me the approach that works best."

The result is that we, the community, will see this vision document that allows for vigorous community comment in around a month's time. As Ms Saffin said, hopefully, sooner rather than later.

One of the questions that keep being raised in Lismore App discussions is the removal of houses from the floodplain through house buybacks leaving the CBD with less people to frequent the CBD shops. The Lismore App has heard plans of medium-density apartments or flats being built on the edges of the floodplain, is this an option being considered?

Cr Colby said that's probably one of the ideas that is on the table to take to the community, "If you look at it, it's a living document, until you get to the stage where the community consultation says that's what we really want."

MS Saffin said, "When we talk about some sort of retreat from the floodplains, it's what else do we do to continue our viability and sustainability. So, all of that is in the mix, under discussion."

Talking about retreating from the floodplain, there appear to be conflicting plans in place. On the one hand, the NRRC is asking about 2000 homeowners across the Northern Rivers, a large portion of those in Lismore, to accept a house buyback at pre-flood prices due to the high risk to life in the event of another major flood of February 2022 proportions.

On the other hand, there are homes that are for sale or for rent in the floodplain that could well be in a red zone or high-risk area thus putting people/families in danger once again. Why is there not one clear plan in place?

That question was answered by Janelle Saffin, "All of this disaster happened with the whole planning in place. So, that was never going to change overnight but there will be some changes over time. We weren't able to change everything retrospectively. Good question but there's no easy answer to it. There have been recommendations from the Flood Inquiry about building directly in harm's way and you've seen comments from the Prime Minister down but that's going to take some time for that to work through."

Cr Rob added, "There's been restrictions on building new houses for years in Lismore and we've just increased those restrictions to make it harder. They can't apply retrospectively, so everyone's got existing continued use rights. So, if their house is there, even though it got flooded, they can bring it back and rent it out again and the only way to make them leave is if, I think the NRRC said they're not going to compulsorily acquire, and that's the only way to make them go, you can't stop it. That's freedom of the world we live in, they've got the right to be there."

That argument then comes down to government legislation. Will a government be strong enough to change legislation so houses with the highest risk to life in any floodplain in NSW cannot be sold to anyone other than the state government itself? If not, the merry-go-round continues........