In the nine months since floods gutted Harper Dalton’s South Lismore home, he has been waiting for two things: a land buyback and the ability to pick up the redwood home and move it to higher ground.
On Friday it emerged that northern rivers residents eligible for buybacks under a new joint federal and state $800m housing scheme will be allowed to do just that.
If residents choose not to move their flood-affected home or if it is not possible, the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) will attempt to sell the houses to people willing to relocate them or strip them of any usable materials before destroying them.
NRRC’s chief executive, David Witherdin, told Guardian Australia it would be “madness to do anything else” amid housing, labour and materials shortages across the state.
The government will not fund the moves, but will buy the properties back from residents at pre-flood prices.
The long-awaited scheme has been widely welcomed by residents in the region who were left waiting for further the details that would be made public next week as outreach from the leading agency begins.
Speaking before elements of the scheme – including the house relocations – were detailed, Dalton said being able to shift a home was about protecting the heritage of the area.
He has been campaigning for months to preserve homes, like his 1910 redwood house, which still has solid frames despite being gutted in the February and March floods.
“There’s no way that my house is going to be demolished. [We] want our houses to be relocated,” he said.
Dalton has been slowly renovating what was left of his home after the floods and has installed a kitchen, but his progress has been slowed by the threat of more floods and the uncertainly of his home’s future.
“I can’t justify putting the work into it until we’re out of this wet season and that I know that the house will be preserved,” he said, warning he would have “locked on” had he not been allowed to move it as part of the program.
The state government and the NRRC will spend $100m to buy land in “flood safe” areas for future development.
While news of the scheme was welcomed by many, it remains unclear exactly who will be eligible for what, and when the money would start moving.
Speaking in Lismore on Friday the premier, Dominic Perrottet, said the goal for the buybacks was to protect those “at most risk”.
The government has deemed that to be those with a “one in five chance of being affected by flood”, with further guidelines to be published next week.
Flood-affected residents in the region can also apply for grants of up to $100,000 to raise their homes or up to $50,000 to retrofit them.
The independent report into the flooding disaster found more than 5,000 homes were left uninhabitable across the state.
Witherdin insisted flexibility would be one of the key features of the scheme as it was rolled out, with a case manager to be assigned to applicants to ensure people were getting solutions that made sense for them.
“Whilst we’ve got the guidelines there, we have some flexibility. It’s not as simple as getting a map out,” he said.
“What we’re doing is trying to de-risk [the area].
“Each person’s situation is really unique.”
East Lismore resident Katie Coughlan bought her family home just before the major floods of 2017. This year her husband was rescued off their roof and the family of four are still unable to return to the gutted home.
While she welcomed news of a plan, she was scared about what was to come.
“They’ve got an offer for house raising [but] there’s only one street in our house that’s on the ground. Everybody’s already raised,” she said.
“The retrofit sounds great but I’d like to retrofit it somewhere else.”
