Tayanah Caldarella, University of Western Sydney

Planning for sea level rise: the socio-legal value of land and development

Dramatic changes and events to the New South Wales coast caused by global climate change have led to the introduction of a number of local planning policies and attempts at legislative reform aimed at reducing risks and liabilities resulting from sea level rise. Such policies may also serve to influence the acceptance (or otherwise) by coastal communities of the inevitable adaptation to sea level rise at the social level, and the property market at the economic level. Such policies have had varying successes; the juxtaposition of long-standing and inherent (legal) private property rights, and policies or planning instruments which seek to provide community as well as individual benefit, have caused and will continue to cause conflict. Due to the impact of sea level rise increasing in the event of storm surges, tidal systems and the nature and type of localised environment, a ‘black and white’ national approach to adaptation is fraught with difficulty, and a bottom-up strategy would appear to be effective for the local community. However, such localised strategies will not be effective in the long term without federal, state and local coordination of adaptive governance and law. My research will offer insights into the implications of the economic and societal impacts when the preservation of the value of land, and the developments thereon, become threatened. Specifically, I adopt a socio-legal analysis to examine the importance of the value of coastal property to various stakeholders within a local community.

Tayanah O’Donnell - tayanah80@hotmail.com

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