Homeowners ‘in limbo’ with storm buyout scheme – councillor

Auckland Council needs to have a “hard conversation” with homeowners who expect to be part of a buyout scheme for vulnerable properties but won’t be, North Shore ward councillor Richard Hills said on Thursday.

His comments come after the government announced plans, earlier this month, to partner with local councils to make offers to buy “category three” homes, that are so at risk of future flooding they are no longer safe to live in.

Homes hit by flooding in January and February in Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, and other localities have been categorised as either category one (still safe to live in), category two (can be lived in, providing flood mitigation work is done), or category three (too dangerous to live in).

About 700 homes have been designated category three, with around 400 of them in Auckland.

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During an update to councillors on the progress of the region’s flood mitigation work, Hill asked: “Where is the point that we stop leaving people in limbo?

”As I understand it, with the billions it’s going to be costing anyway, we are only going to be buying where it’s extremely unsafe or [flooding is] repetitive,” Hills said.

“At what point are we sadly ripping off that band-aid because it’s pretty horrible for people, but we need to tell them that they need to engage their insurance.”

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown responded that there is no clear answer on how the government and council are funding the scheme.

During the update, councillors were told 12 areas have been identified as suitable for the council’s blue-green network proposal to fix flooding problems across the region.

Healthy Waters general manager Craig Mcilroy said there are examples of infrastructure that worked well in the flood event, including joint programmes with Kāinga Ora.

”So we really see this as an opportunity to grow more of these networks,” Mcilroy said.

He described the blue-green network as “a lot of new linear parks and those linear parks will be green most of the time, but probably for 1% of the time they’ll be blue because they’ll be temporary lakes”.

The programme is not cheap from either a buyback or infrastructure perspective, he said, but nature had presented an opportunity to “turn a really bad thing into something good going forward for the community”.

The head of planning at Healthy Waters, Nick Vigar, said the concept involved removing properties from one side of a stream to enable the widening of the stream and floodplain.

”This is not the be all and end all, we are aware of other significant clusters,” Vigar said.

The waterways identified are: Kumeū River, Wairau Creek, Waimoko Stream, Opanuku Stream, Porters Stream, Whau Stream, Te Ararata Stream, Harania Creek, Whangapouri Creek, Te Auaunga Awa (Oakley Creek), Cox’s Creek, and Gribblehurst Park and St Leonards Road.

Auckland Council’s group recovery manager Mat Tucker told councillors that several thousand homeowners in Auckland have been contacted about the recovery programme with consultation concentrating on areas that have been affected badly by geotechnical and flooding events.

In a statement, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown said the initial evaluation of sites suitable for blue-green networks was based on risk assessments for flooding frequency, magnitude, and stability of surrounding buildings.

“More importantly, our teams gauged the rate water rises and the potential for entrapment or risk to life,” Brown said.

However, who picks up the tab for the projects is not yet resolved.

“We would welcome a similar government funding arrangement to the Christchurch earthquake, which sets a precedent for the ‘Risk Category 3’ buyout programme,” Brown said.