WE SAY, YOU SAY

WE SAY, YOU SAY

We’ve seen the devastation of flood waters, yet the Government backed down on plans to protect wetlands (which help soak up heavy rain) after they received complaints from property developers. Are you confident we’re making the right decisions to protect us from future disasters? Let’s discuss!

YOU SAY

We need housing for our everexpanding population and unfortunately our cities are in the wrong places. We now know that many towns and cities will need to be moved and no one is going to be happy about it.

If you drive from Picton to Blenheim, you travel through Koromiko where in the recent past they had a really bad flood. The houses were then raised up a level to protect them and their families from future floods. The height that Napier’s flood reached would have still been too much for even these houses but at least thought was given to their rebuilding.

Perhaps it is time to stop building houses on concrete pads. A house on piles can be knocked off the piles but at least there is protection from minor flooding and if a house needs to be moved, it can be.

– Jenny from Tı¯tahi Bay

If anyone wants proof of why wetlands are needed just look at what’s happened to Te Awa estate in Napier. It’s an old lagoon that was never fit to build on and it’s flooded after a good storm.

– Linda from Clive

Retaining wetlands is vital. It’s widely known that due to ‘‘progress’’ over the decades, New Zealand has lost more wetlands than any other country. About 90% I believe. Wetlands help soak up water as well as providing for very valuable carbon sinks. Of course, the planet’s overpopulation of humans due to our industrial, technological and medical advancements over the past 150 years or so has meant we’ve needed more land for housing, industry and agriculture . And corporations, as well as most everyday people, still want more growth. (Kiwisaver investments rely on growth, for example.) So there is now no simple solution to the dangerous dilemma we all now face.

– Paul from Fitzherbert

Not the Government decision to build over wetlands, the Opposition would have screamed blue murder and turned it into a political football if Labour had stopped any building on what is considered to be wetland. The bigger picture is climate change we try to bury with all sorts of excuses.

– Fred from Taupō Central

I did not have the education to help save the world back in the 1950s as I left school at age 15 with no qualifications, but I am trying to catch up, just as all the older generation should be. One of the main reasons that the young are getting involved now is that they can see that there will be no earth for them to live on when they get older, they are not doing it to save the earth but save their future (some might but most will not).

If I had been given ‘‘proof’’ such as the young are getting now, I am pretty sure I would have wanted to do something about it. So the youngsters are not heroes but self preservationists.

– Gordon from Halswell

Bexley was a prime argument for this, council at the time said no to the development. Developer took them to court and won, yet people hold the council to account where developers walk away, zero consequences.

– Benjamin from Rangiora

Wetlands are proven to help alleviate flooding, more impervious surfaces and cleared land lead to greater flooding. Also agree planning of development is abysmal. Follow the dollars . . . Am dismayed that decisions are made and somehow we never know until after the fact.

– Dan from Havelock North

During the heavy rain, I videoed the water flowing down, the road, my driveway, through the lawn into the native bush. The bush significantly slowed the flow and filtered the water down into the valley below. My plan is to revert the grass/lawn on my steep section into native bush, with wetland at the bottom. I started to regenerate two years ago. Leave the wetlands, the rain will still fall out of the sky, and for protection and preservation of our native species.

– Jenny from Waimauku

With all the intensive housing being built, no more lawns, gardens, green belts to absorb the water, instead, vast areas of concrete and tarmac so when it rains, it all starts running down hill at a great pace, completely overwhelming our drainage systems, most of which are blocked with debris because the council do not clean suburban gutters frequently. They have not cleaned our gutters in Ō rā kei