Mr Metz said yesterday's informal meeting had been reasonably positive but the issue still remained that one-in-50 year storms that brought flooding were happening more and more often. He said Roxanne Pl should never have been consented because it was built on a flood plain, with water backing up on both sides then entering the subdivision when the Waimapu River was unable to cope with flood waters at high tide.
Mr Metz believed the real problem was the silting up of the river but they were told that addressing that issue would need a resource consent from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and that could take a long time. He was not convinced that the contract recently let for the first phase of the flood relief works for Roxanne Pl would make any difference in storms.
It involved spending $750,000 to raise the level of Poike Rd for 250m to the intersection of Roxanne Pl and laying stormwater pipes under the road to empty into the river.
Funding and the timetable for flood protection work in the catchment would be decided during the review, later this year, of the council's 10-year plan.
