Last evening about 200 people crammed into the Haumona Hall to hear a presentation on the Coastal erosion issues that are affecting Haumoana and Te Awanga.
It was a combined meeting between the Hawke's Bay Regional Council and the Hastings District. The Regional Council is responsible for what happens in the sea and controls any type of consent within the coastal environment. The Hastings District Council controls land use and residential development on the land.
As I went to the meeting I was acutely aware that the options being presented were very difficult for the community and the councils. There are no easy solutions and all options cost at least 10 million dollars for a relatively small number of houses.
We went there to share information prepared by three separate experts on Coastal erosion. The consensus from these experts boil down to two solutions. One involves protecting the coast with engineering protection using groynes at a cost of 18.5 million dollars. The other, in stark contrast, involves a managed retreat over time. This involves letting the sea do its thing and shifting dwellings further back, as required. This has a community cost of nearly 10 million dollars.
Both are very unpalatable. Naturally we got into the issue of who should pay for this, what is causing the erosion. The current policies of both councils generally say that the beneficiaries of such work should pay for most of the cost. This is not set in stone, but even with some modification the residents out there will pay the majority of the costs.
The properties, especially those directly next to the sea, would see capital requirements of nearly 300k per property towards groynes. In the managed retreat option, they would simply loose the value in their property as it is eroded away. Again, this is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Coupled with this is significant uncertainty about the effectiveness of groynes, the uncertainty about actually getting a Resource Consent for them and the upstream erosion effects they may cause.
Fighting Mother Nature is difficult. The lack of gravels and the erosion beside these two coastal communities has most likely been caused by Mother Nature. The 1931 earthquake saw the area drop and the rivers no longer send out as much gravel as they used to.
I was heartened by how reasoned the audience was last evening. Sure I understand the realities are stark, the costs high and the option unpalatable. However, we are not about to walk away from these communities. With them we hope to find a consensus on the way forward. I also expect that when we finalise the options all residents in Haumoana and Te Awanga will be able to vote on their preference.
Those are my thoughts for the week.
I’m Lawrence Yule.
