This time, the flooding was so bad in the basement that it was four days before the lifts started working again and he could leave his second-floor apartment. “I felt like being in prison,” he says. Flooding in Melbourne suburbs where development has surged is an increasing problem for older inner city locales like Brunswick, where huge numbers of apartments are being built – often without the existing infrastructure being able to take the added pressure. Christian Astourian, stranded in his apartment for four days after flooding stopped the lifts working. Credit:Joe Armao “It’s something that has been occurring more and more,” says Planning Institute Victorian president Laura Murray. “The existing infrastructure needs to have the capacity to cope.” "It should be more transparent where the funds collected from developers through development contribution plans across such municipalities is being spent, to ensure it is being allocated to required infrastructure upgrades to address issues like this one," she says.

The apartment block (right) after rains hit Brunswick. Where flooding is occurring, it invariably involves existing drains being required to cope with more water, a loss of grass and other permeable surfaces leading to more run-off, and inaccurate or out-of-date council planning data not accurately reflecting areas prone to flooding, Ms Murray says. The Brunswick block where last Tuesday’s floods occurred was built by Brighton-based developer Damgar (its website refers to the development as featuring "water harvesting to public areas"). Damgar's owners could not be reached on Wednesday. One apartment resident, Tony Weir, is lobbying Moreland Council to fix the drainage problem in his street. In recent years, three other large apartment developments have been approved within 50 metres of his block, meaning drains having to cope with ever greater deluges. Last year, the council tried to improve things, adding extra storm water pits, which a council officer said would “mitigate the flooding issue”.

The footpath outside the apartment after the rains. They made no difference – and perhaps made things worse. Now, unsecured lids on the drains come loose during heavy rain, creating serious pedestrian dangers. During last Tuesday’s flood, an elderly man navigating the footpath fell into a drain, Mr Weir says. Video footage shows the drenched man being helped out of the water by a resident. Mr Weir says he wants to know “how the hell a building like this got built in an area that has an historic flooding problem”. He says he knows speaking out about the flooding issue could devalue his property. “We’re doing this as a measure of last resort – that guy who fell into the storm water pit, he could have died. If a kid fell in there, they’d drown. And the council has known about it for some time.” Moreland Council’s infrastructure director Grant Thorne says the floods occurring at the apartment building were complex, and that an investigation was under way.