Naomi Clark: My name's Naomi Clark. I work for the Merri-bek City Council, and my role is Integrated Water Management Officer.
The advice I would give to another council who's considering looking at an offset scheme would be to first have a chat with your planning team and get a collection of recent developments.
Have a look at what type of treatments are typical and what kind of challenges those development applications are facing when it comes to achieving water sensitive outcomes.
I would also recommend having a really good think about who needs to be part of the conversation. So, you might have your sustainability team, your drainage team, your planning team, open space team. I would recommend getting them in early.
Stormwater offsets might seem like a concept that you might understand, but it can be a bit of a learning journey for the rest of council.
Page last updated: 05/12/25