Flood-prone areas the wrong place to build houses, says neighbour

Friday, 3 February 2023

An unconvinced John Anderson faces the prospect of houses replacing the maize on a flood-prone area behind him.

Palmerston North should heed the lessons of Auckland’s floods and not build houses on flood-prone land, says Meadowbrook Drive resident John Anderson.

Land over his back fence formerly known as Whiskey Creek has been rezoned for the Matangi residential area.

Anderson and others made submissions opposing the change, but have not lodged an appeal because of the likely costs.

But he remains frustrated that his 47 years of local knowledge, having witnessed four significant floods across the site, has not been listened to.

A flood has hit Auckland for the second time in days, with houses and streets underwater. (Video February 2023)

* Meadowbrook residents do not want a dram of Whiskey Creek

* Meadowbrook Dr residents object to housing on their boundary

“With this Auckland stuff, Mayor Wayne Brown has said, we have got some of our city built in the wrong place.

Flooding in the Flygers Line outskirts of Palmerston North in 2004.

“Well, this is the wrong place.”

The Flygers Investment Group case for rezoning the land bounded by Flygers Line and Rangitīkei Line was heard by commissioners in June 2022, with a decision allowing the District Plan change, with conditions, released in September.

It involves rezoning nearly 13 hectares of rural land as residential, to accommodate up to 158 traditional and terraced homes, and a further 10ha to a conservation and amenity zone.

Anderson sifts through evidence of past flooding in the Flygers Line area which has been rezoned for residential use.

Palmerston North City Council principal planner Michael Duindam said the land was identified as flood prone in the District Plan, and previous proposals for its development had been resisted, including by the council.

That did not, however, mean the land should be locked up and never released for development, he said.

In this case, Duindam said technical experts at the hearing had demonstrated that flooding could be managed appropriately through conditions at the subdivision stage.

Particular provisions required that flood levels in the nearby residential zone would be reduced or remain unchanged, that flood levels in the rural zone would not increase by more than 50mm, and that all lots in the Matangi area would be raised above the levels of a 1 in 200-year flood.

There was flooding at the Flygers Line/Rangitīkei Line intersection in 2015 near land now identified for residential use.

Duindam said there were very strict conditions in place that would oblige the developer to provide modelling, carry out earthworks and have them certified in order to gain resource consents from Horizons Regional Council.

“I don’t think we have anything as stringent anywhere else in the city.”

Anderson and his wife Raewyn were disappointed about the impacts the subdivision would have on their 1970s home and property, blocking views across farmland to Mt Ruapehu, and shading the backyard that had been designed to bask year around in northwesterly sunshine.

But his principal concern remained the flood risks – for the subdivision, for neighbours in Meadowbrook Drive and Benmore Ave, and for land downstream.

He believed the information put before the commissioners was wrong, and at odds with photographs he had provided of flood events in 1976, 2004 and 2015.

Local knowledge, the effects of climate change and the experience of Auckland in recent days, all suggested flooding in the area would get worse, he said.

“But we have run out of options. We are not being listened to. We got a 5-metre building setback from our boundary instead of 1.5m, but that’s the only thing we got.”