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| PREDICTIONS: Paul Tully. |
HOUSE prices should go up and insurance premiums should come down.
They are just two of the repercussions Cr Paul Tully can see occurring in flood-affected suburbs like Goodna if the $1 billion class action against the State Government to be launched by Maurice Blackburn lawyers is successful.
Cr Tully, who lost his own home in the 2011 floods, said only 15 homes and four businesses would have been inundated in the floods had the Wivenhoe Dam been operated correctly.
He has predicted home buyers and investors would return to the market in droves in the wake of new flood modelling that showed how few homes would have flooded two years ago.
Cr Tully said homes had been selling for less that $100,000 since the floods, but that would change if the class action was successful.
"House prices dropped more than $200,000 overnight in the suburb when the flood hit," he said. "Buyers can be confident the 2011 Brisbane River flood would have been a non-event, which will now drive prices higher very quickly.
"There are literally hundreds of real estate bargains between Ipswich and Brisbane with a new found confidence likely to hit the market."
There are literally hundreds of real estate bargains between Ipswich and Brisbane with a new found confidence likely to hit the market.
Cr Tully added that there was "no longer any justification for the rapacious premiums" of insurance premiums that skyrocketed by up to 1000 per cent after the floods and has called on banks and other financial institutions to "review their lending criteria in light of the revised flood modelling".
Cr Tully has plotted the revised flood level against individual dwellings to determine whether or not the water would have gone above their floorboards had Wivenhoe Dam been operated correctly.
The modelling is based on a two-metre reduction at the Brisbane city gauge which represents, based on historic flood levels, a six-metre reduction at Goodna.
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| FLOODED: Cnr Brisbane Tce and Layard St, Goodna, during the 2011 flood. |
"The official flood level at Goodna would have dropped from 16.4m to 10.4m," he said.
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| FLOOD MAP: The blue area on this Goodna map show which areas the 2011 impacted, and the yellow shows where the water would have impacted had Wivenhoe Dam been managed correctly. |
"On those figures, only 15 homes and four businesses would have been flooded at Goodna. The average depth of water in those homes would have been less than half a metre."
On those figures, only 15 homes and four businesses would have been flooded at Goodna.
Cr Tully said the Goodna town centre would "not have flooded".
"Nor would the Goodna RSL Services Club, nor the three service stations, four banks and two hotels," he said.
"Goodna would have been back to normal within 24 hours, but now we are still facing years of heartbreak with destroyed homes, marriages and families."
www.QT.com.au
23.1.13
