Owners of landslide-hit homes may get buyout
‘Finally’: Homeowner glad to see council ‘taking a stand’
More than 14 months after his home was destroyed by a torrent of mud and bush from a sodden reserve, Luke Hanan and other slip-affected Maungatapu homeowners will soon learn if authorities will offer to buy them out.
Hanan says he is glad to see Tauranga City Council finally “taking a stand” to potentially help his family after they lost their home and “probably everything” inside in the Auckland Anniversary weekend landslide.
“If [the council’s] reserve hadn’t fallen down on our house, we’d be happy as Larry,” he said.
In extreme rainfall on January 28 last year there were two large landslides on the council’s Taipari Reserve between Te Mutu Cres and Egret Ave.
Twenty-four homes were evacuated and children covered in mud were pulled from the rubble.
On Monday council commissioners will consider a recommendation to buy the highest-risk affected homes in a “one-time” response enabled by an offer of Crown funding.
Alastair Mcneil, the council’s general manager of corporate services, told the Bay of Plenty Times a risk analysis found ongoing risk to life and property at 11 properties above and below Taipari Reserve.
Those 11 were being considered for applications to a new process set up by the Government to help certain councils with funding to support cyclone- and flood-affected communities.
He said the council learned in September the Crown would be prepared to share 50 per cent of the buyout costs for Tauranga properties rated in the highest risk Category 3, less private insurance or Earthquake Commission proceeds.
Category 3 means properties where the risk to life from future severe weather events is intolerable and cannot be sufficiently mitigated.
Properties rated Category 2 – where the risk to life from future severe weather events is too high but can be mitigated by physical work – could also receive support for remedial measures. A report in the agenda for Monday’s meeting stated seven Maungatapu properties were considered to have a high-risk level of loss of life. Two had medium risk and two low risk.
However, commissioners were yet to confirm how many would be deemed Category 3.
The agenda report stated the council initially said it would not be responsible for repairing slips affecting private property and was “highly unlikely to take any steps beyond its regulatory function or take measures to remediate property damage”.
It changed tack in September after being offered financial support through phase two of the Crown’s Future of Severely Affected Location (Fosal) process, which had initially targeted Hawke’s Bay, Auckland and Taira¯whiti.
The report said if it agreed to adopt the Fosal process, the council and Crown would offer to pay market values of the chosen affected properties as at the day before the landslides.
This was considered fair and would help property owners relocate away from Category 3 land, the report stated.
The council’s share would come from its Stormwater Reactive Reserve Fund.
There would be “financial consequences” for the council and ratepayers from this “one-time only” approach but it would recognise the “unprecedented” situation and the “need to provide resolution and certainty to landowners”.
It was also consistent with the approaches of other councils affected by 2023 severe weather events.
Mcneil said some of the confidential reports to be presented to the council would be made public but others, including an indicative financial assessment, would not. Homeowner’s ‘long’ wait for answers
Hanan expects his Egret Ave home will likely meet Category 3 standards.
On January 28, Hanan and his partner were woken by what sounded like an earthquake, then a loud bang. Seconds later his house began filling with mud as the couple scrambled to find Hanan’s children. Two were safe and three were rescued from the mud.
At the time, Hanan said the house “snapped in half and then slid and sort of rolled over itself”.
Since that night, the family had lived with in-laws, in caravans, and in emergency housing while trying to sort out what to do next.
Hanan told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend on Thursday it had been an exhausting and emotionally taxing time.
“It just seems like it’s such a long time to get any sort of answers.”
Hanan said it was a relief to see the council had changed tack and “finally … standing up and realising it’s potentially their issue”.
While the potential voluntary buyout could be good for most property owners, it was harder for his family to digest after losing all the possessions in their home, he said.
“As a family, everything that was in that house we worked for. That’s what we believe we are owed.”
In response, Mcneil said the council appreciated the “incredibly difficult time” for affected residents and that decisions around the future of their properties were “taking longer than any of us would ideally like”.
The new Government process was “only now” being applied to councils outside of the three main storm-hit areas.
Maungatapu had a “long history” of slips and there had been 13 homes affected by slips in the past 12 months, he said.
The council has since updated its existing slope hazard map and created new landslide susceptibility maps. It had also developed a landslip response policy to guide future decision-making.
Kiri Gillespie is an assistant news director and a senior journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, specialising in local politics and city issues. She was a finalist for the Voyager Media Awards Regional Journalist of the Year in 2021.