Discussion: Regulations

I saw one comment on that report saying that getting building approval to rebuild was hard after the 2009 fires - I assume the IPA thinks complying with BAL standards is one of the regs that should be relaxed this time.

Of course they do. I think in the end it will be the insurance companies who call the shots. Want insurance... do this.

I think you're right. A lot of owners of coastal property are in for a rude shock sooner or later in that respect, too.

Log - I was talking to a building surveyor recently who said something similar (in the middle of a rant about BAL regs), but there's a couple of problems with that:

* It doesn't just affect you. You might make the tradeoff between risk and insurance and decide that it's worth it, but if your house burns it adds significantly to the fuel load in the area.
* You can't control what your neighbours do. The current BAL regs take that into account by effectively ignoring your own vegetation (instead you have a bushfire management statement that dictates how you control that) and concentrate on the surrounding vegetation that you don't control. There's also sections in the regs about separation from other structures, and if your neighbour builds something it could retrospectively affect you.

I hit the latter problem with my own block where my neighbour's front garden, in outer suburbia, was dense enough to throw a 28m BAL-FZ zone across my block. On a new build you can account for that, but you can bet your ass insurance companies would make it retrospective.

Blair - I assume a lot of them will find that they're under-insured, because you can't rebuild that 50s timber cottage in the middle of a fire zone.