Waterfront property owners have won the right to build their own seawall to protect their assets in what may be a precedent-setting case affecting coastal properties throughout NSW.
The owners of three residential flat buildings at The Entrance on the Central Coast put in an application to build permanent coastal protection works, including a seawall, after extreme weather events in 2020.
Central Coast Council refused their request, arguing that the immediate interest of the landowners to protect their properties should not outweigh the public interest in maintaining the "visual amenity and scenic qualities" of the coast.
The site was declared a reconstruction area under the Reconstruction Authority Act in May, 2025, which allowed a range of temporary emergency protection works.
Those included rock armor and sand containers.
The measures do not cater for the full range of coastal erosion events that are anticipated, the court found, and it was envisaged that permanent stabilisation works will be required and would need development consent.
In overturning the council's decision and allowing the seawall, Land and Environment Court commissioner Joanne Gray said the amenity of the coast was already degraded.
The desire to live on the beach and a past lack of controls to prevent it has resulted in the degradation of natural coastal protection and left residential development exposed to a range of coastal hazards, Ms Gray said.
Coastal erosion has been a persistent issue at The Entrance North, and the owners of residential flat buildings between 1 to 13 of Hutton Road, made up of three separate strata schemes, sought to build a wall to arrest the continuing erosion of the site and restore the land eroded from past events, Ms Gray said in her judgement.
The seawall was an acceptable solution in a context where coastal protection works were reasonably anticipated, a rock revetment was not suitable, and there was no strategy for sand nourishment to an extent that would protect private property.
Among other objections, the council said approval would establish a precedent for similar development along that stretch of beach affected by coastal erosion.
It argued that could lead to the "undesirable outcome" of continuous seawalls along North Entrance Beach and other Central Coast beaches.
But the acceptability of future coastal protection works was a question to be answered during the assessment of development applications for those works, the court found.
"Whilst the approval of the proposed development has the potential to become a precedent for the construction of other seawalls, this alone is insufficient to warrant its refusal," Ms Gray said.
Wamberal Protection Association president Chris Rogers welcomed the court's decision, saying the ruling was a positive one.
"The judgment is an indication that the courts understand the need for protection and the fact that continuing to do nothing is not an option," Mr Rogers said.
"I think it clearly highlights the need for something to be done from a coastal protection point of view and that councils and the state government doing nothing really is not an option, so they either have to come up with feasible protection measures or people will go to court."
Wamberal beach was the most studied beach in NSW, Mr Rogers said, and the time for research was over.
"We now have an opportunity to get something in with the (reconstruction authority) but we are waiting to see what the state government is planning," he said.
"The sad thing is that, if you look at The Entrance, they have multiple different types of protection. At Wamberal, we are trying to keep it succinct with the one type of protection mechanism that makes sense and protects the suburb, but it's in the hands of the government.
"We are waiting and we've seen some designs which we think are over-engineered and unnecessary and we haven't had the opportunity to discuss that with government. It's extremely frustrating.
"The state government has an opportunity to set a precedent at Wamberal beach. At the moment we're trying to keep everyone together but you can only try for so long."
The development application now approved for The Entrance is back in court on August 4 to finalise details relating to contracting and funding.
