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Planning to adapt – the Marks Point and Belmont South Local Adaptation Plan

The Lake Macquarie City Council worked with the local community to develop a local adaptation plan which identified existing and new strategies to protect homes from an increased flooding risk

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Like other low-lying lakeside communities in the area, the 1200 households of Marks Point and Belmont South are prone to occasional flooding. In 2013 Lake Macquarie City Council initiated a collaboration with the local community to manage these new and increasing risks by developing a Local Adaptation Plan (LAP). The community suggested 39 possible management actions, ranging from planned retreat to major engineering works to modify floods. The actions were assessed by the community against social, environmental, and economic criteria. The assessment showed the best strategy is to manage the risk of permanent inundation in settled areas is by progressively protecting the lake foreshore while filling low-lying land and raising homes and infrastructure. Natural areas will be managed by planned retreat. Flooding will continue to be managed, as it has been for several years, by requiring new and renovated homes to be built with floor levels above major floods. The Plan identified some areas where new solutions need to be developed, including the financing mechanisms for future protection and modification works, and the coordination and design of the raising of land, roads, drains, buildings and other infrastructure.

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