SINCE bushland neighbouring her house has been cleared, Thornlands homeowner Dale Rogers has dreaded the rain – because it resulted in water and debris gushing onto her property from an estate under construction.
The mud and water flows along the fenceline, within a few metres of her house, and towards Eprapah Creek.
Ms Rogers said the flooding had occurred three times since trees were cleared a few months ago.
The impact on Sunday, January 15 was the worst she had seen.
Ms Rogers said the water had come up to her ankles and had gone into a shed where furniture was stored.
“It’s just heartbreaking. It makes you anxious to sit and watch it happening,” she said.
Ms Rogers said the developers had come to the property after the previous floods and had told her the problem would not recur.
“After the first flood, on December 6, they came the next day. They even put new turf down,” she said.
Villa World development manager Andrew Ashwood said they only became aware of the issue on Monday, January 16 from the civil contractor undertaking the construction, BMD Construction.
“We immediately had the project engineer attend the site and instructions regarding rectification works were issued immediately,” he said.
“The works involve cleaning up Mr and Mrs Rogers’ property and works on our site to ensure that this type of event does not reoccur.”
Mr Ashwood said the storm was of “such high intensity that it caused failure of the (erosion and sediment control) protections in place and runoff from the site”.
Ms Rogers said her and husband Jason bought the land about 17 years ago and were required by council to build close to the boundary, alongside an environmental and koala corridor.
In 2015, they found out via a friend that the land would be developed.
On querying the plans for the development with council, Ms Rogers said she was told blocks of 1000 square metres were planned.
Ms Rogers said the size of the blocks under construction have since reduced to about 300 to 400 square metres.
“We had no idea of any of those changes happening,” she said.
“All of a sudden we have got five blocks on our fence line, in what was supposed to be an environmental corridor.
“We weren’t asked about anything. It makes us angry that things kept changing without anyone telling us.”
Ms Rogers said their boundary fence – erected about four years ago – had been removed, without any consultation, during the construction.
Mr Ashwood said the fence was located within Villa World’s land and had to be removed for the development to proceed.
He said Mr and Ms Rogers were notified of the commencement of construction works by letterbox drop, which Ms Rogers denies receiving.
“This notification contained contact information for project representatives; upon removal of the fence we received no contact from Mr or Mrs Rogers voicing any issue or concern,” Mr Ashwood said.
He said Villa World had agreed this week to install a new fence on the joint property boundary.
Ms Rogers said she put the property on the market about a year ago because of the expected impact of the development on their acreage living, but there had been little interest from buyers.
She said they had lost the lifestyle they had chosen when they bought the property.