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Hundreds of Auckland families have had to evacuate their red-stickered homes after last month’s deadly flooding. Those in low-lying areas face repeating the experience as the heating planet makes storms wetter and wilder. Yet the Government quietly delayed a law that could offer at-risk homeowners a chance to rebuild on safer ground, Olivia Wannan learns.
We’re 44 days into 2023, and the upper North Island has been impacted by two cyclones, two atmospheric rivers plus additional storms.
Even before Cyclone Gabrielle arrived to compound Auckland’s soggy misery, hundreds of families faced an uncertain future. Nearly 300 houses have been red-stickered, meaning they are so risky people need the council’s approval to collect clothes or treasured possessions, often with the help of a professional.
In addition, more than 1600 homes have received a yellow sticker (or placard) – perhaps a damaged tree is threatening a particular room. Families may only be able to access parts of their home, or enter it for a designated period of time. Authorities are also warning yellow-placarded homeowners to monitor cyclone forecasts and consider staying elsewhere.
Insured homeowners will receive money from EQC and insurers to fix damage to their land and house.
A new law could add another option: selling your home to the government, for the risky land to be retired while you settle elsewhere. But two years ago, the Government delayed this work due to budget cuts.
As Cyclone Gabrielle is expected to demonstrate, the heating planet is already making the weather more extreme. Rebuilding flood-prone homes may not be the most sensible idea, or even the homeowner’s preference.
On top of floods, rising tides and fires will leave some built-up areas uninhabitable.
Communities can defend against the elements by building seawalls, extending drains, incorporating natural rain “sponges” and using firebreaks.
But for some, these measures only delay the inevitable, warns Raewyn Peart, the Environmental Defence Society’s policy director.
What if your home is no longer safe?
Families in homes damaged frequently by disasters will see their excesses and premiums rise or lose insurance entirely, then be forced to move to safer territory. Wider society could leave these people to deal with the consequences, notes a new report prepared by Peart and colleagues.
“It becomes very ad-hoc,” Peart says. “Some people can afford to move to a safe place. Other people simply can’t because all their investment and savings are tied up in their house and, of course, they can’t sell it. So they don’t have any money to go anywhere else. It can be very messy – and potentially trap some people.”
But judging by history, the country won’t choose unmanaged retreat. Aotearoa didn’t leave liquefaction-affected Christchurch residents to their fate, but offered compensation to move to a safer suburb, the report noted. Central and local government attempted to manage the retreat of Matatā residents, at risk of further damage from flooding.
Christel Yardley/Stuff
At Matatā, 34 coastal sections – including 16 homes – were offered a pay-out to avoid further harm.
Yet while the Labour-led Government has suggested writing a law – the Climate Adaptation Act – to oversee so-called managed retreat on a much larger scale, it has been pushed down the to-do list.
In 2021, Climate Minister James Shaw requested $23 million for the Ministry for the Environment’s work, including the act. But Finance Minister Grant Robertson only allocated $6.5m – and officials delayed work on the Climate Adaptation Act as a result.
Asked if the cost-cutting was the right call, Robertson says the delayed law had “no impact at all” on the Government’s work on managed retreat or assistance after flood events.
“The Government supported the Westport community after the devastating floods in 2021 and is currently considering a proposal from that region to fund its flood protection scheme.”
Shaw said, while he wanted to start on the Climate Adaptation Act sooner than the Labour-led Cabinet, “plenty of other work has been and is being done”.
He understood that some people whose homes and lives have been affected by the latest storms will want to seek safer ground.
“Moving whole communities, however, is a different matter.”
Peart said progress had been slow, though she noted the Government had a lot on its to-do list in recent years. “This is going to evolve over decades.”
Putting a stop to new development in at-risk areas should have been a priority, she says.
The Government requires councils to model climate risks when deciding where to locate new higher-density housing. In practice, however, Auckland Council has allowed high-density development on flood plains.
The ministry also asked the public for thoughts on managed retreat as it was developing the National Adaptation Plan, published last year.
Tough conversations
Who pays is a key question, Peart says.
The cash could come from the general taxpayer coffers, rates bills and insurance levies – or even, the report proposes, a new capital gains tax.
It’s tempting to propose that polluters should pay, Peart adds. Moving costs could be partly paid for by a windfall tax on fossil fuel revenues or levies on petrol, diesel, natural gas and coal.
“Often it can be quite difficult to develop a coherent scheme, but we need to look at all these things,” she says.
There’s a time component to the subject of payment. Even with the recent extremes, the next generation will be more likely to retreat than today’s. But current and past generations have benefitted the most from fossil fuels, and may feel morally obliged to partly pay.
The Government could start a savings pot – akin to the Super Fund – to collect money and earn interest, the report says.
Māori communities will need to decide how and when the proposed law would assist them, Peart says, in a way that recognises rangatiratanga. “This policy cannot involve the compulsory taking of Māori land.”
Tenants also face losses when homes become uninhabitable, such as rent rises. With about one-third of people living in rentals, these citizens shouldn’t be ignored, the authors say.
Importantly, the public – Government, councils and communities – need to find a way for people to be comfortable moving before catastrophe strikes, Peart says. When Canterbury earthquake and Matatā flood-hit residents were offered compensation, they’d already been hit by a disaster.
“It makes sense to move people before the disaster occurs… People die in these disasters,” Peart says. “But before the damage occurs, people living in these areas are quite comfortable and attached to that place and their house.”
STUFF
Rivers bursting their banks, flash floods and more intense cyclones – how climate change is making floods more extreme.
Options today
The red stickers or placards on Auckland homes are different to the “red zone” classification for the houses affected by liquefaction following the Christchurch earthquake. Red-zoned properties were deemed a permanent risk.
Meanwhile, the placards issued by Auckland Council determine a house is a temporary risk, not that a building or land is permanently unsafe, says Auckland Council’s Ian McCormick.
“Many are reds because there’s been land movement. Structural engineers could remediate that with a retaining wall or something, then typically the red placards would come off.”
Property owners would be eligible for the total cash in their policy – the sum insured – if the expected repair bill equalled or exceeded the figure.
However, that sum only covers the cost to repair or rebuild the buildings, says Tim Grafton of the Insurance Council. It’s not the house-plus-land value.
EQC insures land, though only the parts under or nearby buildings and driveways – in the event of an earthquake, landslip, tsunami or volcanic or geothermal episode. The agency also covers the first $150,000 to $300,000 of property damage from flooding.
“If you are a property – say in West Auckland – and was 1.5 metres underwater, there may be silt and sludge under the property as a result of the flooding. EQC’s liability is pretty small: just to cover the cost of flushing that stuff out,” Grafton says.
If EQC and the insurer determine the unstable land and buildings are a total write-off, an owner might be eligible for the cash to shift to an equivalent home in a less flood-prone area.
The rest will be eligible for the repair bill to secure their land and fix the property. Those wanting to avoid future issues would have to sell their rebuilt home to someone prepared to take the risk – or those who haven’t done their LIM homework.
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