Matata

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 18th, 2019 - 44 comments
Categories: auckland supercity, climate change, disaster, Environment, local government - Tags:

Many a bold claim has been made for the necessity of responding to climate change, but when it comes to storms affecting one’s own home, Matata is surely the test case of this century.

It was May 2005 that brought a torrential downpour onto a small coastal plain, where boulders and logs and debris destroyed 27 homes and racked up at $20 million bill just to clean it up and get basic services back in.

At RNZ, John Campbell went through some of the detail of compensating locals for this loss.

Residents were allowed back into the area in 2006 because the Whakatane Council believed it could build a structure to contain debris in a similar event.

Six years on it just gave up. So the Council wanted to make a District Plan change which would rezone the Awatariki fanhead as uninhabitable.
Instead they are now on their way to make offers to the property owners. It’s voluntary.

Unlike Christchurch, or Kaikoura, in which massive earthquakes occurred and in response huge government agencies rolled in and put things to right. In Christchurch’s case, large swathes of coastline were quickly confirmed as uninhabitable and people have been long since paid out.

This is 13 years ago.

Now, most New Zealanders are poor. If they own a house it’s by the skin of their teeth, and Matata is no exception. Matata is a very small settlement. Some people will choose to stay despite all the known risks and despite being offered market rates a legal costs and some relocation costs, and no discount for the likelihood of being hit by further debris. Some people are like that.

Unlike Westland District Council, Whakatane Council doesn’t go out the media and bleat about how unfair life is. They know they will need to squeeze some extra funding from somewhere, and they’re working on it.
It’s also quite different to the approach by Auckland Council to flooding in Piha Chair of the Environment Committee Penny Hulse said that she wasn’t ruling out buying some of the affected houses, but “[w]hatever we do in Piha, we need to be prepared to do around the rest of the Auckland region. We’ve actually got a city that is facing a huge, huge amount of strain through the impact of climate change, increased flooding and increased incidents of high rain events. We have to really look at what we’re signing up the rest of Auckland to.” So far, no actual solutions implemented.

Kaeo in Northland is another such settlement, full of people with very little money, plenty of plans from the District Council about engineering this and that, but sure as the sun rises there’s another flood coming there and they will get frequent and bigger. It’s too big for single householders to handle.
It’s fine for councils to endlessly consider processes and options, but what it doesn’t account for is the massive amount of strain it puts on the lives of ordinary kiwis struggling like their lives depend on it to defend their homes as the one thing that keeps their future literally and figuratively above water – these are people who can’t afford to go several rounds armed with geotech engineers, Public Works Act law specialist lawyers, and structural engineers, who can win against a council and protect their hard-won little piece of land and house.

It’s one thing to point out that local councils don’t have a policy framework for assessing the impact of increased flooding on settlements. Not every council has reams of policy staff. But it’s another if you’re a citizen trying to hold Councils to account for not anticipating the damage: without a policy framework the ability to hold them to account is negligible or prohibitively awkward and costly.

We’ve had the ETS draft legislation, which is fine if you are regulating gases and carbon flows.

But what we need is a whole new legislative and executive framework for dealing quickly with the effects of climate change flooding and their effects on New Zealand settlements with actual families inside them. Councils large and small are manifestly unable to deal expeditiously with flash flood impacts upon whole settlements. It’s not as if they haven’t seen this coming.
We need legal redress mechanisms that put fast statutory time frames similar to Building Consents in which the clock ticks on Councils to respond and implement the solution – whether it’s cash to get out, or District Plan Change/’managed retreat’ solution, or an engineering solution. And financial penalties upon councils for not complying.

It should include putting faster statutory time frames around responses from the EQC.

It should include some hard time frames around responses to claims to a Council through the Public Works Act.

It could include a ready reaction force within NZTA – although their contractors readily help out with the diggers anyway as was the case in Westland this year.

It could include a section of the NZDF dedicating their engineering teams to responding to New Zealand events.

It could mean amending Council Long Term Plan requirements to include showing how all councils have budgeted for areas most vulnerable to storm events, and tasking public auditors to ensure that is in there.

After all if the Reserve Bank can require banks to put aside a whole bunch more contingency for a financial rainy day, it’s time for New Zealand’s councils to do so for an actual rainy day.

For the citizens of Matata, being told by Council there was an engineering solution, then after years of waiting being told it’s too hard, is totally unacceptable. There is no justice in that anywhere. It would be unacceptable for anyone who has had that scale of disaster happen to them.

It’s a disgrace of governance to put false hope into a small and poor community.

It’s not as if we haven’t had practice in recovery. This government needs to take the site-specific legislative solutions it took to the Christchurch earthquakes, and the executive implementation solutions it took to Kaikoura, and start bundling them into ready packages for flood-vulnerable Councils.

Way back in the late 1970s were a series of massive floods in Southland that actually meant that the entire settlement of Kelso was forcibly removed. But now, even keeping the remaining roads open gets too hard.

Time to require Councils and government departments to prepare for impact.

44 comments on “Matata ”

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  1. Lucy 1
    18 July 2019 at 9:48 am

    "It could include a section of the NZDF dedicating their engineering teams to responding to New Zealand events" that would be a good idea and a really good use of our defense force. I know America use their engineers in this way – to create the New Orleans levys. Only problem is that like US the direction of the Army is dictated by Government so when you have idiots in power the NZDF would not be used constructively.

    • Exkiwiforces 1.1
      18 July 2019 at 2:01 pm

      This is the mob you are referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Corps_of_Engineers

      We once had an organisation called the Ministry Of Works, who , built things or contacted builds out for example the Chatham Islands Airport and did Quality Assurance and Quality Control on all Government construction projects. Sadly this great and wonderful organisation called MoW was downed sized with its designed engineering office and construction arm split off for sale under the "No Mates Party" in the 90's.

      Personally I would like too see the MoW re-establish as designed engineering office to provided designed/ quantity surveying, quality assurance and quality control on all Government construction project. As a way of providing good sound advice to Government and the muppets at Treasury who still seem too think that "Value For Money" manta aka the cheapest bidder is the way to good instead of good sound engineering advice or policy.

      The NZDF has been used constructively (minus the Gan & Iraq sideshow) with a very tight budget which has led to it being a under resourced and under manned since the 90's. In turned has led to a few deaths and injuries from Non Combat and Combat related Ops and Ex's from the 90's due to it being on a tight budget, being a under resourced and under manned since the 90's.

      The NZ Army prior to the 90's had two Engineer Regt's with one based in the (3Fld Regt) South Island and the other based in the (2Fld Regt) Nth Island. With one RF Sqn, One TF Sqn, a combined RF/TF Support SQN and a combine HQ's Sqn to make up an Engineer Regt. But this and along with every other part of the NZDF was ran into the ground in the 90's and through to the mid 00's. Even today the NZ Army Engineers are still short one Sqn (exists as paper unit) in its OrBat which is a far cry from prior to the savage cuts of the 90's under by the "No Mates Party."

      The "No Mates Party" from the 90's and now have a lot to answer for? As the chickens are starting to come home to roost from some of their short term decisions/ short term thinking.

      • Dukeofurl 1.1.1
        21 July 2019 at 9:52 am

        Wikipedia seems to mention only company level squadrons in the time period you mention

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_of_Royal_New_Zealand_Engineers

        1 Field Squadron attached to 1 Infantry Brigade in the Northern Region

        3 Field Squadron as part of 3 Infantry Brigade was located in the Southern Region

        and at the bulk of the regular forces;2 Field Squadron, 6 Ind Field Squadron, and 5 Support Squadron in the central NI.

        • Exkiwiforces 1.1.1.1
          21 July 2019 at 5:21 pm

          I have a TOE (Table Of Establishment) along with a couple of Orbat tables from the early 1980's to 1991's of the NZ Armed Forces later renamed in the NZDF by the 84 Labour Government somewhere and I don't know where they atm? As the RRF was based out of Burnham until the 89-91 or 92. Unless I can found these bits of papers then I'm in a bit of trouble.

          The guts of this thread from my POV is that we need to have 2 well balance Engineer Regt's in both island's which would require a lot of rebuilding the both RF and in particular the TF (whatever they are called now) capabilities which was run into the ground in the 91's then has been staved of funds since then. If we have any chance of being fully prepare for CC weather and natural events as we no longer have the MoW to fall back on nowadays.

    • Dukeofurl 1.2
      21 July 2019 at 9:58 am

      New Orleans levies were built badly as Hurricane Katrina showed by private contractors. The US Army Corps of Engineers is mainly a funding and administration body ( design and construction management), under money provided by Congress often as pork barrel projects for dams ,waterways and river control.

      Of the 37,000 employees , only 2% are military

  2. michelle 2
    18 July 2019 at 10:28 am

    I blame the council for this they should never had allowed homes to be built there in the first place and we are seeing this more often throughout NZ. I feel for these people this is their homes for life and all this has come tumbling down I hope they pay them out top dollar so they can try and start again. I know they want to stay but I believe it is too unsafe and untenable.

    • Enough is Enough 2.1
      18 July 2019 at 1:10 pm

      These houses were built before the full impact of the current climate emergency was being felt so you can't rwally blame the Council.

      Council's from the 1960s and 1970s can be forgiven for not appreciating that 30 years down the track we would be facing the ferocity of the storms we encounter today. They had no idea about climate change and could have never anticipated that we would get weather like we do now. It is a different world we live in.

      • mpledger 2.1.1
        18 July 2019 at 1:41 pm

        I'm getting to that age when I hear young things on the radio saying "twenty/thirty years ago this didn't happened" and I remember back twenty/thirty years ago and I remember it did happen. I was there – they weren't or they were in triangle trousers. I find it quite annoying … also because they are saying it in a way to say that those people then were in some way inferior or ignorant.

        Anyway, climate change science have been around for ages see the wikipedia entry about it's history. In Pleasantville, a movie from 1998, they mention climate change being a threat to the planet as part of a science class. That's only 21 years ago but if it makes into the movies at that point then it's seems likely it was general knowledge somewhat earlier.

        I remember discussing it with my northern hemisphere relations 40 years ago.

        • Enough is Enough 2.1.1.1
          18 July 2019 at 1:49 pm

          Are you saying that climate change has had no impact?

          That our weather extremes are the same as they were 40 years ago?

        • bwaghorn 2.1.1.2
          18 July 2019 at 4:02 pm

          I found an article the other day from 1912 mentioning the fact that if we keep burning coal the carbon dioxide released will warm the planet. (Screen grabbed it but am not tech savvy enough to paste here. )

          We've known for some time .

          • Andre 2.1.1.2.1
            18 July 2019 at 4:17 pm

            Fourier is generally credited as the first person to work out that the atmosphere is doing something to keep the Earth warmer than it would be just from the heat balance of incoming solar heat versus how much heat is radiated to space. That was back in the 1820s.

            Then Tyndall in the 1860s did some measurements of infrared properties of gases, and worked out CO2 is the main driver of greenhouse warming.

            That 1912 article would have been prompted by Arrhenius working out how much temperatures would rise from doubling CO2. But to be fair to them back then, the very slow rate of CO2 rise made it all a pretty hypothetical concern. Not now, though.

            https://skepticalscience.com/two-centuries-climate-science-1.html

        • Pat 2.1.1.3
          18 July 2019 at 7:42 pm

          "But in 1976, Jimmy Carter came into office determined to end the crisis. His term began during one of the coldest winters of American history, which triggered a heating-fuel shortage. Days into his presidency, he delivered a now-famous televised address about energy. “We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren,” he told America from in front of a fireplace, wearing a cardigan. “We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.”

          The president had solar panels installed on the White House roof and called for a billion-dollar investment in solar-power research. He pushed for legislation, including the 1978 National Energy Act, which created federal grants for energy-efficient homes and buildings. He also led the creation of the Department of Energy, a cabinet-level body charged with dealing with these issues. But he was not able to find support for an oil tax. Many Americans didn’t want a plan that added up to “Pay More, Buy Less,” as The Boston Globe put it."

          https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/american-oil-consumption/482532/

          over 40 years ago….Jimmy Carter was no fool but wasnt wanted …or rather his message wasnt

      • Dukeofurl 2.1.2
        21 July 2019 at 1:27 pm

        The official report done after 2005 says it was historically long time location for debris flows from the surrounding hills.

        The 2005 storm was considered a 1 in 500 yr event , with a 10% chance of another in the next 50 years, but also almost certain another 'smaller' but major event will happen like those since 1860

        I dont think you could sat it was a 'ferocious storm from Climate change'
        Im thinking ‘mean rainfall’ increase from Climate Change rather than increase in 1 in 500 yrs events

  3. bwaghorn 3
    18 July 2019 at 10:38 am

    The way forward is to procure some land nearby and shift the houses . Most older nz houses are on piles. It would be far cheaper than flattening the existing ones to build new . It would keep people in their houses and communities.

    All the little costal towns in nz could be moved as and when needed .

    Imho.

    • Molly 3.1
      18 July 2019 at 5:52 pm

      That is a solution that preserves the often overlooked social connection of the community. When presented with a purchase offer, I would think that many who are emphatic about staying are doing so because of the community ties they have, as well as their individual connection to their homes.

      Relocation of the community, to a suitable site and with support may be a more palatable choice, and perhaps cheaper than council or government purchasing uninhabitable houses.

      • Rosemary McDonald 3.1.1
        18 July 2019 at 6:51 pm

        Many years ago there was a severe erosion problem in the small coastal village of Kairakau. The beachfront houses were moved to a street behind the 'one back from the beach front' houses. The is still evidence of those original beachfront houses on what remains of the eroding cliff.

        The only written account I can find about this is….

        From 1970 – 1987 the front row of cottages were the subject of much public debate. The cottages were ordered to be removed once the Town and Country Planning Act was passed as they were found to be on the strip. Because of this the council could no longer rate the owners and they were given notice of 15 years to remove their cottages ferom the beach front. In fact they stayed for 19 years without paying any rates.

        In 1987,following a long battle with the Central Hawkes Bay CouncilKairakau Holdings purchased the back paddock to accommodate all the front cottages when they were removed from the beachfront. This area has since been subdivided and roads and services put in. The houses have subsequently moved to their new location. N

        http://ketechb.peoplesnetworknz.info/site/documents/show/75-the-story-of-kairakau

        • Molly 3.1.1.1
          19 July 2019 at 9:52 am

          Thanks for the story. It was a good read, and I checked out Google Maps to see what Kairakau looks like at present, and you can understand the connection people had to the place.

          The bonus about moving houses such a short distance is that they are more likely (with permission from NZTA) able to be moved in one piece and without removing the roof. Two cost savers for putting the house back together. As well as reduced freight costs and bracing costs for movers, which could be further reduced by a bulk move planned process.

          • Dukeofurl 3.1.1.1.1
            21 July 2019 at 1:21 pm

            Yes. Moving the houses is a kiwi thing.

            Lots of houses in Taupo were moved from the hydro villages and forestry towns that existed for native forests logging.

            I remember when in Rotorua a house that was on its 3rd site after coming to the city from a rural area and then again to a smaller site. Still had its outer black stained weatherboards

  4. esoteric pineapples 4
    18 July 2019 at 2:54 pm

    What is happening to towns and cities with global warming is like what happened to the city of Rome. It didn't collapse to little more than a village in one day. It was sacking after sacking by a variety of invaders after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west that eventually over centuries reduced it to a shadow of its former self. They will try and protect London, New York and small towns in New Zealand for a while, but with every new flood event, the incentives will diminish as no one has the money to restore them any more. First they will be left to squatters after insurance becomes impossible to get, and then they will be permanently abandoned to the sea.

  5. Ken 5
    18 July 2019 at 3:38 pm

    I suppose that if they want to stay, they have to go off grid, forego insurance and look after themselves next time the hill comes down.

  6. vto 6
    18 July 2019 at 9:27 pm

    I think your view is nutty in terms of what you expect council's to budget for. In a whole bunch of ways

    Not least of which is the barmy notion that councils should underwrite the value of property which finds itself in the path of climate change effects.

    Nutty

    • Ad 6.1
      18 July 2019 at 10:12 pm

      "underwrite" is a term I neither used nor implied.

      • vto 6.1.1
        19 July 2019 at 5:29 am

        Perhaps an alternative word could be used then Ad, but this here is the nutty bit I was referring to;

        "We need legal redress mechanisms that put fast statutory time frames similar to Building Consents in which the clock ticks on Councils to respond and implement the solution – whether it’s cash to get out, or District Plan Change/’managed retreat’ solution, or an engineering solution. And financial penalties upon councils for not complying."

        "Cash to get out", "retreat" or "engineering" all involve cost to try and preserve the status quo as much as possible. i.e. a form of underwrite.

        Whatever the term, this is not possible – not with the small number of ratepayers which typically exist in those districts most exposed.

        "Cash to get out"? Nope. Absolutely opposed. One reason: there has been ample warning for pretty much every risk site in the country. They should have moved years ago. They should move now. It has been their decision to remain (there will be minor exceptions). Further, I am not convinced that a district plan provides a guarantee for someone that the property will remain free from risk, as many seem to think. Further again and most importantly, there are insufficient ratepayers to cover this cost in most places.

        Perhaps the district plans and other policy documents need to make this clear to people. But that has been tried in places like Christchurch. The people revolted and didn't want even that… go figure. This has been rejected, and the rejection accepted due to the local politics.

        "Managed retreat". This is the best and only solution. People need to start moving. Loss in value across properties due to this?? Can't move because their once $1m beachfront home is now worth $100k? Life is tough. Many people suffer events in their lives outside of their control which cost them like this and they receive no compensation. Happens all day every day to many people. Has happened to us. People don't get no compensation in these events. Tough. Plus again, ratepayers can't afford to cover this.

        "engineering solution". Not wasting any pencil on this one.

        2c after decades of consideration of these risks and building, living and moving amongst them.

        • Ad 6.1.1.1
          19 July 2019 at 6:41 am

          None of the options of "cash to get out", "retreat", or "engineering" mean status quo at all.

          It is not the responsibility of local governments to cover all of this impact, and I made that very clear from the examples I used.

          Your kind of answer is an impatient pitiless armchair lefty extremism that loads all responsibility onto property owners.

          Local and central government have a place to play in recovery after major events, as they always have and will, and people should expect their help, and it needs greater form and structure to do so as climate change effects intensify.

          • vto 6.1.1.1.1
            19 July 2019 at 6:56 am

            we clearly have highly divergent views.

            it is curious though that you consider my view to be lefty. Imo it is yours that is lefty, given it involves commonality whereas mine is individual. Further, their aint nothing armchair about my view – it has been honed in real life events of the kind posted. In multiple districts and scenarios.

            But look, you keep banging on about local and central govt roles in this, and financial penalties for Councils (ratepayers) for not doing so etc etc. Someone has to for sure – that is nature of our society. Meantime those of us who have experienced these things will do what I suggest below at 7. And lobby for the type of approach I outline above.

          • vto 6.1.1.1.2
            19 July 2019 at 7:05 am

            Another response Ad:

            Maori apparently moved in around the 1500's from the flat areas adjacent to the sea and estuaries up onto the surrounding hillsides after a massive tsunami inundated large swathes of coastal aotearoa.

            Japanese moved centuries ago in the same way – from the flat areas adjacent to the sea up onto the surrounding hillsides. Those Japanese communities that moved then placed marker stones advising "do not build below this level" for future communities. These marker stones were found after the monster tsunami monstered Fukushima and surrounding areas in 2011.

            People who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. We have already ignored this history and are doing so again right now today before our very eyes.

            People need to move.

            • Ad 6.1.1.1.2.1
              21 July 2019 at 9:59 am

              Really not much use comparing the scale density and mobility of Maori pre-contact settlement to ours.

              Japanese build massive engineering structures to prevent tsunamis, and other disasters. As per Fukushima, sometimes they work, sometimes the don't. But they make the effort together. The response from the central government in every Japanese disaster is to organize people to relocate, and to rebuild civil infrastructure. It is always massive and comprehensive.

              What they never, ever do is leave it to people to be solely responsible for these decisions. Which is what you propose above.

              No doubt people need to move, but they also need the comprehensive help of central and local government to do so.

              • Poission …
                21 July 2019 at 1:23 pm

                Really not much use comparing the scale density and mobility of Maori pre-contact settlement to ours.

                Your assumption would be wrong,the response due to climate change in the LIA in NZ by maori was northward migration, fortified settlements (pa building) and intensive horticulture involving extensive engineering feats.

                The modification of the Horotiu loams is a good example Gumbley quantified the modification as such.

                to modify 1 hectare of soil required the digging up,transport in flax baskets and redistribution of sand and gravel was around 1300m^3.

                for 3000 hectare it was 4million m^3 around the scale of 4 times the volume of the clyde dam (over 1.5 centuries)

                • Ad …
                  21 July 2019 at 1:47 pm

                  There's no critique implied or otherwise of Maori engineering in the post or the comments.

                  The post is about local and central government – and all the institutions and laws that have formed around it – acting in a quicker and more cohesive form on behalf of citizens.

          • vto 6.1.1.1.3
            19 July 2019 at 7:17 am

            One more response;

            "people should expect their help" Nope. People should not expect their help – that is entirely the point I make below at 7 for the reasons explained there.

        • Molly 6.1.1.2
          19 July 2019 at 10:02 am

          As mentioned before in a conversation with Robert Guyton, the declaration of a National Policy Statement would require ALL local authorities to take account of climate change if it was issued.

          This would immediately affect any decision making in resource consent applications, and would require that planning documents be changed to take this into account.

          It also negates the need to 'persuade' elected officials each year of the concern they should have. After spending much time in consulation part of the Unitary Plan it became apparent that long-term effective planning was not going to be the outcome, too many invested stakeholders, little to no integration with transport planning, and a refusal to include climate change considerations in the planning rules.

          It is the responsibility of the local authorities to make rules and planning decisions that best serve their communities in the long term. They have access to the information and data that would allow them to do so, and yet they have consistently acted in response to other pressures. Therefore, they retain some responsibility for those in their communities that are left in these situations. And if only to ensure that they pick up their game in the future, they should assume some of the costs of those bad decisions.

          (Note: often those who have benefitted from bad decisions have made their profits and moved on long ago).

  7. vto 7
    18 July 2019 at 9:39 pm

    One thing learned from going through the entire chch eq scenario. Don't rely on anyone but yourself..

    Sure, have insurance. And eqc. But best is to have a house that will handle shaking so you don't need to make a claim in the first place. There is no doubt about this.

    But people will forget this. They will rely on insurance. And council's. And eqc. And there will be tears again.

    People should learn this chch lesson and apply it to their individual climate change house risk positions.

    • Pat 7.1
      18 July 2019 at 10:14 pm

      that is good advice

    • Lucy 7.2
      19 July 2019 at 10:50 am

      There is not a house built that can "handle" shaking or erosion or sea rise. We are a community and need to behave like one. People can't walk away from their house with nothing to go to. As a society the answer can't be if something happens you're on your own.

      • Pat 7.2.1
        19 July 2019 at 11:01 am

        the reality is that all at threat properties will not and cannot be moved or compensated for so people would be wise not to anticipate they will be and act accordingly….promoting otherwise is delusional.

        As VTO says…there will be tears again

      • Dukeofurl 7.2.2
        21 July 2019 at 10:07 am

        Earthquakes can sometimes reduce risks from other perils. I was reading the other week about some old newspaper stories from Napier how the storm tides and large waves were affecting the buildings on the seafront in central Napier in the early decades of the 20th century

        The 1931 earthquake changed all that as the land around central Napier was lifted up and the rubble from the city was used to create gardens backed by a storm wall on the old beach front.

        The earthquake also moved the land down around Clive and Haumona much further around the bay.

        The result was coastal erosion stopped around Napier ( some places the old ship wrecks now sit high up the beach) and increased in settlements on the beaches around Clive and the river estuaries there

    • Ad 7.3
      21 July 2019 at 10:19 am

      I'm amazed from someone who went through Christchurch's effects that you don't see the insights to be gained for the public sector.

      No one, not GNS nor Civil Defence nor EQC, predicted that Christchurch was vulnerable to sets of hard west-east very shallow earthquakes.

      So it was not reasonable to expect property owners to prepare for them. Nor was it reasonable to expect public institutions to be prepared for such events. But as a result of the earthquakes there have been massive institutional changes to structural regulations, building owner obligations, emergency responses, and local and central government organization, up and down New Zealand. Which we have all learnt from – and yet not enough.

      That unpredicted risk in Christchurch is not the case with climate change, where the areas most vulnerable are highly predicted, well forecast, and are tracking true to those predictions.

      So unlike Christchurch's poorly forecast earthquake examples, with climate change effects there is every reason to expect local and central government to operate within a single and coherent accountability and response framework..

      Also I get that you worry about people freeloading when there's a public intervention; they should carry the risk and make judgements as best they can. The freeloading problem is the case every time the public sector intervenes anywhere. It's not an argument against intervention. There are plenty of systems that supposedly guide our risk decisions that totally fail, such as insurance premiums, as Wellington is finding out.

      All such interventions take massive public coordination. One of the largest signaled in the last month was the wholesale re-evaluation of all Defence property assets. It took huge coordination over 15 years ago between between central and local government to enable Hobsonville airbase to be transformed with billions of public dollars, before individuals could make specific investment decisions about moving.

      • Pat 7.3.1
        21 July 2019 at 10:35 am

        You miss VTOs point I fear…..it is not I believe a criticism of planning or even necessarily the response (though there's much to criticise), rather it is the observation of what occured, and the reasons for it and how it was received and responded to…..by all parties from the reinsurers, insurers,national and local government, the courts and crucially the property owners (both impacted and not).

        Almost all of the decisions made had their basis in economics…and that is not going to change , indeed as the scale increases so will the influence of economy

      • Dukeofurl 7.3.2
        21 July 2019 at 10:44 am

        Areas of Christchurch were zoned red mostly because the ongoing risk to homes but because of a policy decision NOT to restore the stormwater and sewerage infrastructure. Without new underground pipes the place is mostly useless except a few areas.

        I was shown through a highly damaged factory in an industrial area close to the Avon estuary, I was staggered they were still in production, helped by a forest of steel props.
        I suppose that land was seen as more valuable and buildings there could be rebuilt and services continued

        • Pat 7.3.2.1
          21 July 2019 at 10:51 am

          If you recall there was an original proposal for area wide remediation which was quietly dropped due to cost….the cost benefit of repairing services was obviously a factor in what was red zoned or not as was impact on availability of reinsurance…it was an exercise in aggregates that created many of the anomalies.

  8. Dukeofurl 8
    21 July 2019 at 10:32 am

    One thing seems to be jumbled, Matata would have been paid out for damage just like Christchurch and Kaikoura. Floods are paid the same way as earthquakes by EQC – if you have insurance first as those in Edgecumbe found out.

    The Rainfall in the whole coastal Bay of Plenty in early May 2005 was extreme , not just a 'cloudburst in the hills behind Matata'.

    “Civilisation exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.” William Durant was on the frontispiece of the GNS report on the event

    The rainfall appears to be not more than a 500-year recurrence event (about 10% probability in 50 years), and it is convenient to treat the associated debris flows as having a similar recurrence interval. There is evidence that equally as large, and larger debris flows have occurred many times since 7000 years ago. Historical records indicate that probably four smaller debris-flows have occurred since 1860.

    https://static.geonet.org.nz/info/reports/landslide/CR_2005-071.pdf

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