North Coast Northern Rivers Flood Recovery Temporary Housing Program

Services

Contact point

Picture of Paul Hay
Paul Hay Regional Director 02 6626 5600

NSW Public Works and partners constructed 11 temporary housing villages with 546 dwellings in less than 12 months, leveraging our experience in delivery and procurement.

Following significant flooding in February and March 2022, the NSW Reconstruction Authority (formerly Resilience NSW) engaged NSW Public Works to deliver an unprecedented package of work to provide urgent housing to support the flood recovery efforts and improve the lives of hundreds of families in the Northern Rivers of NSW who had lost their homes and livelihoods.

Project management approach

The successful delivery of a project that spans across multiple sites and involves numerous stakeholders with competing priorities is challenging. With Temporary Housing there were four head contractors, dozens of subcontractors, numerous communities in crisis, and a government under pressure to deliver - so the complexities of project management were significant.  The delivery of this project required an agile project management approach that was responsive, innovative, and adaptable to meet the specific constraints and requirements of each of the 11 sites.

Video thumbnail
Building 11 villages: The Northern Rivers Temporary Housing Program

Project challenges

  • The project had continually evolving complex scopes, which included constraints such as appropriately-located and suitable available land, Native Title claims, culturally sensitive design, utility services capacity shortfalls, the presence of high voltage underground power supply mains, acid sulphate soils, unexpected asbestos contaminated soils, and low-lying sites with a high-water table.
  • The project team was required to rapidly understand markets and undertake a considerable number of high value, high risk, non-traditional procurements where there were multiple unknowns - all within a significantly compressed timeframe.  Procurement processes for both temporary housing supply and site civil preparation works were initiated while critical requirements including scope, scale, design and location were in development.
  • The flood event compounded an already a significantly constrained civil construction market which posed its own challenges.
  • The proposed village sites were, in most instances, unknown at the time of procurement, hence uncertainty with resourcing/subcontracting needs and delivery risks (eg, site conditions, availability of utilities) at the time of contract negotiation and award. Housing supply was a market unfamiliar to government noting the unprecedented nature of the disaster and scale of response.
  • Ensuring supply of electricity to the temporary housing sites was critical. Electrical network augmentations were recognised as being needed for 10 of the 11 housing village sites.  Experience showed that electrical upgrades often delayed construction projects and that was something we aimed to minimise.
  • Some communities were unsupportive of the program and protested against it. This also posed another challenge to overcome.
Lismore Flood 2022 Aerial view

To successfully deliver the project the team:

  • Rapidly deployed an experienced project management team on the ground in the region
  • Developed and implemented an accelerated sourcing and procurement strategy to fast-track supply
  • Drew on experience and lessons learnt from previous disaster responses
  • Engaged consistently with clients and stakeholders to establish and manage expectations
  • Proactively fostered and maintained a supportive and collaborative culture in the project team.

The team worked and partnered with a significant number of contractors, government and private sector organisations to deliver temporary housing to support the recovery of five flood-impacted local government areas, with 11 fully serviced temporary housing villages being delivered from scratch in under 12 months.

Project outcomes

  • 11 separate temporary housing villages constructed across five Local Government Areas allowing residents to remain in or close to their communities.
  • A total of 546 separate modular dwellings constructed, installed and commissioned in the program.
  • This included 64 caravans installed across 3 of the 11 sites. The supply agreement for the provision of caravans for this project was further utilised as the basis for an additional 400 vans for the “Caravans at Home” program managed by the NSW Reconstruction Authority.
  • Over 2,000 flood affected residents were provided with temporary housing as a part of the temporary housing villages and caravan programs.
  • The use and upskilling of local and regional contractors during the construction of the temporary housing villages was a key focus. More than $82M (>54%) of project construction spend was achieved through engagement of local trades and subcontractors, a significant project achievement.
  • The use and upskilling of inmates from Cessnock, Goulburn and Wellington correctional facilities to construct over 100 of the 546 modular dwellings.
  • The project met the outlined requirements and budget.
  • Leveraging relationships with the electrical supply authority, our in-house expertise and innovative thinking meant these augmentations were completed in significantly reduced timeframes.
  • Following the flood, the project management methodology has been used as a blueprint for the NSW Government flood recovery efforts following the December 2022 floods in the West of the state.  Lessons learnt have further been shared with the Western Australian Government in their recent flood recovery efforts.
  • The NSW Reconstruction Authority has implemented a Caravans at Home Program for subsequent flood events utilising the successful procurements developed by the project team.
Video thumbnail
Video

Rebuilding together: Inmates contribute to Northern Rivers flood recovery

Lipman Brunswick Village 2_Feb 2023-4308.jpg
Temporary Housing - Coraki site
Temporary Housing - Coraki duskTemporary Housing - Coraki dusk
Lipman Brunswick Village 2_Feb 2023-8021.jpg
125 Tweed St Brunswick Village Feb 2023-0369.jpg
Brunswick Heads Temporary Housing village