Future of new subdivision near Napier hangs in balance

Friday, 25 August 2023

The dream spot was located, the land was purchased, the title issued, the services were in place and the house was built and ready to put on the site. Then Cyclone Gabrielle came along.

Ford Panirau and his family are among eight owners of lots at the Tangoio Beach settlement, about 22km north of Napier, who had their building consents put on hold after the cyclone hit.

Resource consent for the 37-lot coastal settlement was granted by Hastings District Council in April 2019 and site construction was completed in 2022. Twenty-five of the lots have been sold to date.

There are two completed houses in the development, plus one nearly completed, and one partially completed.

Others, like Panirau’s property, would have been completed and move onsite by now had it not been for the cyclone and Hastings District Council’s subsequent decision to suspend their building consent applications.

The lower part of the development suffered surface flooding in the cyclone, and when the provisional Land Categorisations were announced on June 1, landowners discovered the development had been place in Category 2A.

Properties in Category 2A are considered to have potential to be made safe for residential dwellings, but more information is needed before the councils can make that decision.

The residents’ worst fear is that the councils will decide to place the development in Category 3, like neighbouring land, where it’s considered unsafe to build.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council announced this week that engineers were investigating all Category 2A and 2C areas and would decide if there were any measures that could reduce risk to the properties. That would identify what sort of consents might be needed.

The council aimed to have this work completed by October.

Meanwhile, the lives of Panirau and others in the development, remain “on hold”.

Panirau is a modest, stoic man, not prone to exaggeration or displays of emotion.

“It’s a bit of a mess eh?” he says of the situation that has seen him spending part of every week sleeping in a van on the section in order to save on petrol to get to his job at the Pan Pac forestry plant.

He and wife Kirston had bought the property in 2019 and spent years getting finances and plans in place to make the move, as well as having a house constructed in Hamilton that was ready to be moved onto the Tangoio section around the time of Gabrielle.

Now, as well as paying mortgage on the Hastings house where they live, they are paying mortgage on the Tangoio property, and paying $120 a week just to have the completed house in storage in Hamilton.

“I think there’s an idea out there that people who bought sections here are millionaires. That’s definitely not the case. Most of us are working and getting by just like everyone else,” he said.

“It cost $6000 to get the house moved into storage alone. That should have gone towards the $60,000 it would cost getting it shifted down here,” Panirau said.

Panirau and others with properties at the development say they understand the pressures faced by Hastings District Council, but have been unimpressed by what they think has been a woeful lack of communication.

They also question why the whole development has been put in Category 2A

“There are 8 sections along the road that were unaffected by the flooding, ours is one of them, none of them should be in 2A zone. They should have been categorized separately which was the whole reason for initial feedback and meeting when they first released the category system over two months ago,” Panirau said.

“If we are zoned level 3 we may have no choice but to take buyout option and try to sell our house in Hamilton,” he said.

Hastings District Council group manager planning and regulatory services John O’Shaughnessy said the council was waiting to see if the Tangoio properties are recategorised “as this may have a bearing on how their consents are dealt with”.

“In the meantime we are still looking at pathways forward if they remain in this category, and this may still take two to three weeks. Therefore, those consents and amendments in our system for processing are on hold,” he said.

He said the properties that were already under construction would continue to be inspected and issued Code Compliance Certificates.