Landowners in Batemans Bay at loggerheads with Eurobodalla council over buyback of beaches

Despite million-dollar offers being made for their land, owners say they're being ripped off - and one has warned no matter what price she won't sell and "will have to be carried out in a box".

Eurobodalla Council has deemed the residents' properties, on a stretch of beach close to the northern side of the Batemans Bay bridge, a high risk for flooding due to dramatic erosion.

Landowners say public infrastructure, including the new bridge, is to blame for the coastal erosion.

The NSW government has offered to purchase $4 million worth of the land to return to public ownership, with an additional $4 million being considered for acquisition in Broulee.

Some residents don't trust the land would be kept public, instead believing developers are the likely final beneficiaries.

Geoff Fielding has been offered $1.1 million to sell the 2000 square metres of beach he's owned at the base of Batemans Bay bridge for 20 years, which he says is a fraction of the land's real value.

Mr Fielding said he had an approved development application to put units on the site that has now expired, evidence the true value of the land is somewhere in the millions.

"We are unable to sell on the open market because council have rezoned it to make it non-operational," he said.

Plans to purchase the land were detailed in the Eurobodalla Open Coast Coastal Management Program adopted by council last month. Its certification provides access to state funding to protect the 140-kilometre stretch of coast from future flooding, erosion and sea-level rise.

The report, written by a private consultancy company, found purchasing 42 lots from private owners would create almost 11,575 square metres of public beach and open space, indicating additional buybacks will follow.

Restoring public ownership of beach at Wharf Road was a priority, among 13 actions identified as necessary to maintain the "amenity and resilience" of the Eurobodalla from issues emerging from population growth and climate change.

The seawall that runs the length of the foreshore from Batemans Bay to Batehaven would also be raised up to 1.3 metres in the next five to 10 years under the plan, to protect the CBD from flooding.

The report found low-lying areas of the Batemans Bay CBD would be inundated with water from ocean storms frequently by 2065 if the seawall wasn't raised.

"This may be considered the threshold where these locations begin to lose their liveability," the authors found.

The consultants also reviewed council's planning controls related to coastal hazards and recommended a range of changes to make it more difficult to build in areas its modelling found to be at risk.

"Low lying areas of Batemans Bay are currently at risk from coastal inundation hazards. In the coming decades, these areas will become increasingly inundated by extreme tides, and eventually will become uninhabitable due to regular tidal inundation," the report found.

"Adaptation planning should commence immediately for these areas to identify suitable approaches to continue to [ensure] viability of this land.

"This may involve a combination of rezoning land, landform adaptation through filling and raising of assets and roads, and property development controls."

Dozens of Surfside properties adjacent to the bay were found to already be at high risk of inundation in coastal storm events and sea-level rise was expected to exacerbate flood levels.

The council has proposed building a sea wall from Surfside West Beach along the waterfront to protect at risk properties.

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Surfside home owner Rosemary Deadman said there are about 6000 property owners in the Eurobodalla who will be impacted by hazard lines drawn up on the council maps, many of who are pensioners who won't be able to afford insurance or even sell their asset to move into retirement homes as banks will not issue mortgages on uninsurable properties.

Ms Deadman is the president of the Eurobodalla Coast Alliance which strongly opposes the plan, due to what they say is a refusal to acknowledge the massive contribution man-made infrastructure has had on coastal erosion.

Her short-term rental is one of several Myamba Parade properties on Surfside beach with water creeping closer to their back door.

Ms Deadman said she's watched 12 metres of beach disappear in the 40 years she's lived there and the rate of erosion was increasing "exponentially".

"The sand dune has now gone which gave us a bit of a buffer so now any tidal surge washes straight into the beach reserve as far as the mowed lawn area, which is only a few metres from the house itself," she said.

"We won't have to lose more than a few more metres of dune before we get waves as close as the house."

Ms Deadman said since construction of the new bridge began erosion had happened "on steroids", a result of sand from Cullendulla being temporarily deposited on Surfside and then sucked out to Corrigans Beach.

She said the new mayor and councillors were being briefed by bureaucrats whose primary motivation was to protect their infrastructure without regard for residents.

"You can be assured that once council gets their hands on this valuable real estate, it will be redeveloped into another Surfers Paradise and then protected," she said.

"I have absolutely no intention of selling to anyone.

"We bought in paradise after years of working seven days a week because of its location and they will have to carry me out in a box."

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