Coastal residents’ fight

Matata residents’ fight for their homes has come to an end.

All Awatarariki residents, bar one, have now ‘‘reluctantly and under duress’’ signed settlement agreements with the Whakata¯ne District Council.

In the end, years of bitter wrangling between residents and the council came down to an anticlimactic hour-long Environment Court hearing on Tuesday, during which lawyers tidied up loose ends.

The only decision to be made was how long the strongest critics of the managed retreat – Pam, Rick and Rachel Whalley – have left in their beloved home.

Their home was built in 1993 by the late Bill Whalley, husband of Pamand father of Rick.

The three watched as Judge David Kirkpatrick said the court wouldmake the order sought by the Whalleys, the Whakata¯ne council and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, allowing the Whalleys to remain in their seaside home until March 2022, subject to strict conditions.

All other residents have until March next year, when, in a New Zealand first, a plan change under the Resource Management Act will take away residents’ existing use rights and effectively make them squatters on their own land. Many have already sold to the council and moved.

The plan change and the district council’smanaged retreat process, in which it bought residents out of their properties, was a result of a devastating debris flow in 2005 that destroyed several houses and made others unliveable but did not cause any deaths.

After spending seven years and $5 million investigating possible engineering solutions, the district council decided that the risk to life on the Awatarariki fanhead was too great, and began amanaged retreat programme.

Developing the programme