By Mikayla Van Loon
When Megan and Billy Polkinghorne bought their dream heritage home on Hermitage Street in Lilydale 20 years ago, the thought that they would have to contend with flooding never occurred to them.
The built up, somewhat hilly, suburban part of Lilydale doesn’t sit within a noted flood zone, and yet three times over 15 years, the Polkinghorne’s family home has been inundated with water.
The first time was when Megan was pregnant with their now 15-year-old son from a burst water main, where Yarra Valley Water accepted fault and paid for the insurance costs.
More recently, however, natural rain events have caused more significant flooding of the property, particularly the October 2022 floods, as well as this year’s downpours.
Megan said with water filling their back shed, there was around $60,000 worth of damage, not to mention the contaminated pool water, landscaping and cleaning up that’s not claimable on insurance.
“We’re in a position now where we can’t claim off our house insurance again, or we’re uninsurable,” she said.
“The bottom section of our house, we go down there and we can smell damp when we have a rain event and flood. So at what point are we going to start getting a rise in damp and mould.”
With all four stormwater pits situated out the front of Megan and Billy’s house, the only ones for Hermitage Street, Jennifer Road and Belle Vue combined, all the runoff heads directly to their house with excess water overflowing and building a stream down their driveway in both big and small rain events.
“This one pit services this whole street from that end to here, the whole of that road up there [Belle Vue] and around the corner to here, all to one pit,” Billy said.
“That was calculated when there were probably eight homes on the street and since then, three units, four units, subdivision, three units, subdivision, another subdivision coming next door.
“So the volume of homes in the street has doubled but they haven’t upgraded anything and every time they put a unit in, they dig across the road and they tap into this pit. Everyone’s just tapping into this one point which is right at the foot of our property and it can’t cope.”
Having been requesting and advocating to Yarra Ranges Council for improved drainage systems since they moved into their home two decades ago, Megan and Billy are at their wits end, considering, after the last two weeks of rain, whether they should sell.
But having poured their heart and soul into renovating their heritage home, spending thousands of dollars on ensuring it’s heritage frontage and signature design features are protected, Megan said it would be nice to have the same care factor from the council
“It’s a heritage home that [Yarra Ranges Council] has put heritage overlay on but yet [they’re] not willing to invest to actually protect it,” she said.
Doing what they can to protect their home, Megan and Billy have installed extra drainage at their expense along the driveway, raised the front step so water doesn’t enter the home itself and regularly clean out the street drains from debris.
After a meeting with the council on Wednesday 10 January, Megan said she was told the street drainage in and around her house was being considered for an upgrade as part of the capital works funding within the next budget.
“Our project is a $100,000 project, to do some work on the drains to have the majority of the rain on Belle Vue be contained on Belle Vue and not come down to us,” she said.
Yarra Ranges Council confirmed these works were being investigated for future work.
“These proposed works will be considered as part of the Stormwater Management Plan which aims to prioritise areas needing attention for future-proofing, identifies impacted properties and drives investment decisions,” a council spokesperson said.
The Stormwater Management Plan is set to be released in mid-2024.
“Drainage is managed by a number of different authorities such as VicRoads, Melbourne Water and Council. The network of drains under the roads help manage rainfall and are part of a flood management system,” the council spokesperson said.
“However, during very heavy rainfall, which we have experienced a number across the state of Victoria in recent years, a new set of challenges is now being presented to the authorities that manage this drainage network.”
But for Megan and Billy each time rain is expected, they are fearful of the impact it will have on their property.
“We’ve been advocating and telling them for 20 years and they’ve done nothing. You look back at all my complaints, my phone calls that these drains don’t even cope with a bit of rain, nevermind heavy rain,” Megan said.
