Operations
Within a day of the fires, the ACT Planning and Land Authority (formerly PALM) was involved in a team effort that set up a cross-government and industry Property Assessment and Recovery Team. PART, as it would be known, at one stage involved more than 50 organisations.
“Every day more and more people would turn up at the meetings,” recalls Ros Chivers, the Bushfire Coordinator at the ACT Planning and Land Authority. “It was amazing to think that so many people from so many different areas were all needed to work on starting the recovery.”
A quick trawl of the PART meeting would reveal updates on restoring essential services of electricity, water and gas; site inspections and data collection; demolition and development approval, insurance, housing and new offers of help.
Says Ros: “The PART meetings ensured that a whole host of different organisations knew what was happening across the recovery effort at the same time.”
It meant that within the first week, ACTPLA had produced, on behalf of PART, the first step-by-step guide for Canberrans to make their property safe. Within a month, a series of five fact sheets were available, which is now called the Guide to Rebuilding After Bushfire.
Building Controller Mahinda Nandagopan remembers the challenge of the site inspections. “Assessing the nature and extent of the damage included looking at footings and electrical wiring. Safety was very important when people were returning to the burnt properties. The examinations made helped with moving forward on insurance payouts, demolition and rebuilding.”
ACTPLA staff undertook site inspections to check and verify available data and reports collected by the police, fire brigade and other emergency services personnel. Using all the information, ACTPLA put together a comprehensive database of the affected properties.
The ACT Land Information Centre, part of ACTPLA, organised aerial photos and other spatial mapping data to help assess the damage. Numerous maps of the areas affected and topographic information is now being used as part of the analysis in different bushfire-related reviews.
Meanwhile, ACTPLA put together a streamlined approvals process for houses to be rebuilt as quickly as possible. The ACT Government agreed to waive thousands of dollars of development application fees. Recently, this also included the payment of the training levy. This levy assists the education of building apprentices. A $5000 rebuilding grant is now also available upon completion of building.
PART was one of the first groups to give advice from the ACT Recovery Centre in Lyons. Joining them shortly afterwards was the Design Advisory Service. This was set up by ACTPLA with the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (ACT chapter) to provide information about home design options. It is now part of the recently established Bushfire Support Service, which also arranges payment of the training levy and administers the rebuilding grant.
Jo Howard has been there all along, one of many ACTPLA staff answering people’s questions. “There are many competing interests to balance in the rebuilding process – the design rules, the neighbours’ right to comment, protecting amenity, and giving approval as quickly as possible,” she says.
Dealing with the personal impact of the bushfires and the professional demands of a job was not easy for everyone at ACTPLA. Wanda Kaucz, one of two ACTPLA staff who lost their home on 18 January, says looking forward is the only way.
ACTPLA mailed a package of information on demolition and rebuilding to more than 1700 licensed ACT builders. As well as the Guide to Rebuilding After Bushfire, ACTPLA prepared and distributed brochures on fences, fire-wise home design and gardens, and what neighbours can expect with consultation during the rebuilding process.
The immediate answers and support are now changing direction to longer-term advice. ACTPLA is still involved through conducting an inquiry into land-use around the urban edges of Canberra. The Urban Edge Review feeds in, as one of several reviews, to the Spatial Plan, which will be releases early in 2004. The 25-30 year Spatial Plan, together with the Economic White Paper and Social Plan make up the ACT’s three-pronged strategic approach for a sustainable future, the Canberra Plan.