Residents unable to return home following Mornington Peninsula landslide have had their homes ransacked
Paul and Denise Willigenburg are renting a second home in the neighbouring suburb of Dromana as their home remains inaccessible following January's landslide. (ABC News: Mike Lorigan)
In short:
A number of homes remain inaccessible after a landslide in the Mornington Peninsula suburb of McCrae caused a home to crash into another property in January.
Properties inside the exclusion zone have also been the target of looting.
What's next:
An independent board of inquiry has been set up to determine the cause of the landslide.
When a landslide caused a two-storey home to tumble down and crash into another property in the Mornington Peninsula suburb of McCrae, there was a sense of deja vu for residents Paul Willigenburg and his wife Denise.
The couple were forced to evacuate the home they own, just two doors down from the 2025 landslide site, because of a landslip in their backyard in November 2022.
They moved into a rental property at the bottom of the hill but had to evacuate that house after this year's landslide.
"I thought at the time when the first landslide started happening back in November 2022, perhaps there are people worse off than we are, and the second one happens and you think [it] couldn't possibly get any worse than this … and it did get worse," he said.
Loading...Mr Willigenburg said the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council had issued them with an emergency order to leave their home.
"In their view there was a risk to life, so we're unable to return until that situation is resolved, and 27 months later it's still not resolved,"he said.
The Willigenburgs have since been locked in legal proceedings with the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council in Victoria's Buildings Appeals board over who is responsible for the 2022 landslide and who will pay for restoration and mitigation works.
He said a judgement in that case has since been delayed following the January 25 landslip.
"So at the moment we're on hold again as we wait for more information," he said.
Properties in exclusion zone targeted
Loading...Adding insult to injury, the Willigenburgs and a number of other residents who have been evacuated from their homes inside the exclusion zone have suffered the indignity of being robbed.
"The reason why we know that is because our neighbour called us, and she basically said, 'Your garage door is wide open, and I can see stuff has been strewn all over the place,'" he said.
A phone call from Victoria Police a short time later confirmed the news.
"They said, 'Unfortunately not only has your home been robbed, your rental property has been robbed as well,'"Mr Willigenburg said.
"So we've been evacuated from two properties in 27 months and now we've been robbed in two properties."
Mike O'Neill is a spokesperson for the affected residents and his property was also ransacked. He said the management of the site has been poorly handled.
Mike O'Neill has been critical of the council’s efforts to protect the affected properties. (ABC News: Andrew Altree-Williams)
"It's all been reactive rather than proactive," Mr O'Neill told 7.30.
"It wasn't until properties had been wholesale burgled, had been tampered with, some properties have been ransacked, that council started to actually listen to us as the affected residents to say, we should be doing a better job of actually maintaining these homes."
Council-funded CCTV cameras, security patrols and fences are present at the landslide exclusion site on Point Nepean Road.
Mr O'Neill said residents are also critical of the flow of information from authorities.
"The authorities have very little regard for the landowners. They're not worried about the landowners. They're worried about the legal implications of what actions they have or haven't undertaken. That's all they're worried about," he said.
"There's just no data, no real information sharing about the criteria as to why we can't occupy our homes."
An image included in a technical report that was supplied to residents. (ABC News)
On February 28, the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council provided a report to residents which detailed the technical studies being carried out across the escarpment, and indicated the landslide is still active.
Mayor Anthony Marsh told 7.30 he was "comfortable with the amount [of information] that we're sharing" and said the movement in the landslide site is "in the millimetres … but there's enough movement to give the engineers concern that the landslide still presents a risk".
Mornington Peninsula Shire Council Mayor, Anthony Marsh. (ABC News: Andrew Altree-Williams)
"It is in the exclusion zone that we currently have set up, which is why there's still eight homes that are not available to be accessed by the owners," Mayorr Marsh said.
7.30 has obtained a video taken on February 28 from a property inside the exclusion zone and adjacent to the landslide site which shows water seeping through a backyard.
Loading..."Council is investigating the source of the water which is coming out of the escarpment," Cr Marsh said.
"Extensive debris and significant safety hazards in the landslide zone are making this a complex and difficult task."
Independent inquiry announced
In the weeks following the landslide, Mornington Peninsula Shire Council wrote to the state government requesting urgent technical and financial help worth up to $3 million to deal with the disaster.
"We now have three different geotechnical firms helping us with the investigations, but these experts cost a lot of money," Cr Marsh said.
"Council can pay for that, but that means there's $3 million that won't go into building roads and footpaths and playgrounds. So something has to give."
A property in McCrae that was destroyed in a landslide in January. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
A Victorian government spokesperson told 7.30: "While the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council is responsible for the ongoing management of the site, we have provided a building surveyor from the VBA to assist the council."
7.30 has confirmed the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council is paying the surveyor's wages.
On February 4, the Victorian Government announced its intention to establish a board of inquiry into the disaster.
More than a month on, it is yet to reveal the inquiry's terms of reference and who will be appointed to the board.
Mayor Marsh believes this situation at McCrae will be protracted.
Eight properties in McCrae still remain inaccessible to residents. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
"I think the issue broadly will be going on for a while, and then I think, you know, there's going to be questions about other similar areas along the coast," he said.
Paul and Denise Willigenburg are now renting a second home in the neighbouring suburb of Dromana but the road back home to McCrae seems a long way off.
Mr Willigenburg said he won't go back until the slope is safe.
"Hopefully, for everybody's sake, all the people who live below at the bottom of the hill or the people who live at the top of the hill, now we can get some answers, that everybody can just settle down and go back to a comfortable and happy life again," he said.
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