Consent granted despite flood risk

FASTTRACK consent has been granted for the outpatient building of the new Dunedin Hospital, despite the independent panel which assessed the application expressing concern about the site’s susceptibility to flooding.

The fivestorey building, the first of two main hospital blocks to be built on the central city site, will mainly cater for patients who can be scanned, tested or treated that day and not require an overnight or longer stay.

Consent for earthworks for the outpatient building has already been granted and piling work already started.

The Ministry of Health hopes the building will be open for patients by mid2025, and that ambition received a boost yesterday after the panel granted consent without a hearing.

The decision does have an appeal period, due to expire in early September.

Although content to carry over many of the consent conditions it imposed on the project for the piles and groundwork, the panel decision included considerable discussion about flood risk on the site, something which concerned members enough for the panel to commission an assessment of its own.

‘‘Restricted access to the building due to flooding will occur for floods greater than the 10plus year event, and for the rare 500plus year flood event the building would not be able to be used,’’ the decision said.

‘‘Although with a floor level above the flood level, no internal damage would be expected and use of the building could be resumed once the flooding had eased.’’

The panel imposed a condition that the ministry draft an emergency plan for various flood events, not just a 500plus year event.

It noted the site was in one of the more floodprone parts of the central city area, but said risks associated with access to the building were for the ministry to assess.

‘‘We consider that the applicant cannot be required to fix existing flood problems in surrounding streets,’’ the decision said.

‘‘We acknowledge also that the building under consideration in the present application is an outpatient building and so might have less susceptibility to closure or other responses to significant flooding than, say, an inpatient building.’’

Despite the concerns of Foodstuffs, the owner of the nearby New World supermarket, that the outpatient building would exacerbate flooding in the area, the panel said possible increases in floodwater levels would likely be in the millimetres.

‘‘We were concerned that Foodstuffs had not taken sufficient account in its comments of the existing flood susceptibility in the locality (which we cannot require the present applicant to cure).

‘‘Neither had they, in our view, taken sufficient account of the relatively very small increases in flooding that would be contributed by the project.’’

The panel also took Foodstuffs to task over its comments about traffic management proposals.

‘‘It complained of shortcomings it perceived in all areas, and at the same time complained about the shortness of time available for it to gain professional advice and make its comments,’’ the decision said.

‘‘The latter is a constraint by legislation that applies to all comers. The former we considered were well addressed by the detailed input we received from the relevant agencies, Dunedin City Council and Waka Kotahi.’’

The panel agreed with those agencies that the building would need better signage, and additional measures to ensure cyclist and pedestrian safety.

It ordered the ministry to consult with emergency service providers and the Otago Regional Council before drafting and submitting a traffic management plan to the DCC and Waka Kotahi.

Other conditions imposed by the panel included a review of the detailed facade design, a noise and vibration management plan, a dust and sediment control plan and that construction work must be limited to between 7am and 6pm, Monday to Friday, and 7am to 2pm on Saturdays.