The report, tabled in the Victorian Parliament on 30 July, recommendations include raising or retrofitting homes severely damaged when the Maribyrnong River burst its banks on 14 October 2022.
It failed to detail any government buyback scheme for the owners of the affected Rivervue retirement village villas, which suffered $7 million in damage, despite finding serious mistakes were made in planning approvals for the retirement village.
The tabled report said the retirement village was built after Melbourne Water relied on inaccurate modelling and consequently ineffective mitigation works to green-light their construction on the floodplain.
“Mistakes were clearly made,” the report found.
Tigcorp told the inquiry into the flood it felt severely let down after the villas flooded, given it bought the site in 2010 with a planning permit and endorsed plans already in place.
Rivervue resident Stan Korkliniewski’s home was engulfed by floodwaters in 2022. He said he was not interested in retrofitting the property for flood resilience.
“A lot of us have come here at later stages of life seeking peace and security and all that’s happened is we have lost our wealth. The government should recognise that,” he told Nine Newspapers.
“It’s not a question of if we get flooded again, it’s a question of when.”
The state government has until January to respond to the report.
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