Viv,
Your concept is fine PROVIDED those who put themselves at risk are TOTALLY independant and self sufficient.

In other words you would not expect or accept help to evacuate or accept donations from other people or the government to repair or restore your home. You would refuse community help to clean up after floods and you would gladly pay for the infastructure repairs to community assets after the floods are gone. What happens if you are flood bound and one of your family needs urgent medical treatment, would you refuse a medivac helicopter?

Our SES and Bushfire Brigades put themselves at risk to help others and we have an obligation to see that they are as safe as possible when doing their work. I have see fire fighters put themselves at enormous risk just to check if some one was in a house that was going to burn anyway.

Some people do not think and Councils have an obligation to see that at least minimum standards apply when building. This includes clearing for fire hazards and building in a no flood area.

No building in flood prone land, big order. How big a flood are you talking about. Towns would be all over the place.
Council had the situation covered by predicting a 1 in 100 yr cycle.
With climatic changes the predictions may not be worth anything.
Floods in 5 states, not a good picture. We will have to pay more taxes for disaster slush funds.

Thats all fine as long as the people building in these areas pay for their own full flood insurance and aren't asking gov't to bail them out.

Your right to live anywhere you like needs to be balanced by your financial responsibility for the consequences. How many people in these areas are underinsured or not insured at all?

People who are determined to rebuild in flood endangered areas need to agree not to seek compensation from the gov't for any future losses.

So, those risks associated with flood-prone land. They would be accepted by all who benefit from it?

The developer will accept a lower margin for developing (probably with cheaper materials)?

The state government will require less stamp duty?

The council will assess lower rates?

services provided through cheaper but more easily replaced infrastructure will charge less accordingly?

employers able to pay lowest possible wages since housing near them is cheap, but incidentally flood-prone?

Obviously all of these will adjust their transactions accordingly....

I think not.

Rusty

As someone who has been involved in this area, I can say there are very good reasons for not allowing people to build in flood prone areas, particularly in cities.

This selfish viewpoint fails to take into account that if you put obstacles in the path of the water, you can increase flood levels back up stream, thereby impacting on other home-owners who may well have chosen to build above the calculated flood level. If such selfish action were widespread then such indivuduals should be responsible for paying for flood damage to other people's houses caused by their wish to build in flood prone areas.

Stop just thinking about yourself and be part of a community!