Simon Wilson: Why flood-prone New Zealand needs to be more like Merwedekanaal

When the floods come, the residents of Merwedekanaal in Utrecht will watch their parks turn into lakes and then dry out again.

Merwedekanaal is a district in the Dutch city of Utrecht, being built beside a canal that floods. Between the canal and the blocks of apartments, offices, schools and community facilities, there are parklands. They’re being designed to contain the floodwater, with the buildings set back and on higher ground overlooking the greenery. Low energy and other eco-design principles are in use throughout.

Many of the people of Merwedekanaal will live, work and play there. Cars, shared and privately owned, will be garaged on the periphery. When so many things are conveniently close and it’s so lovely to be out and about, why would they want to drive?

And when the floods come, they’ll watch their parks turn into lakes and then dry out again. Very little damage will be done.

This is not gentrification: along with market homes, there’ll be a mix of social housing, retirement living, affordable family units, studios, co-operatives and communal housing.

Merwedekanaal, in Utrecht. Designed for surviving floods.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced this week that transport funding will be focused on wild weather resilience and not, as earlier planned, climate action. But Merwedekanaal suggests that’s a false choice. We can do both.

Why is a housing project relevant to the debate about transport? Because housing and transport are so closely related, we shouldn’t be planning them apart.

Of course Hawke’s Bay needs its roads back and so do the East Coast and Auckland’s western beaches. But they can’t go back the way they were.

They need better foundations, to withstand torrential rain on the hillsides. They need to be designed for good floodwater management, with bigger culverts, more soak pits and other runoff controls. These things serve both climate action and disaster rebuilding, and probably have wide support.

And they need to meet the current and future needs of the people who use them. In the urban areas, especially, that should mean making them safe and efficient for buses and bikes as well as private cars.

Merwedekanaal: designed to survive the inevitable flooding.

This idea upsets many people. In the wake of trauma, no one wants to be worrying about change, let alone change that looks like woke nonsense. Bloody bike lanes? It’s just offensive.

But the way to achieve most of the goals of resilience and climate action is the same. To make communities more resilient to flooding, to reduce urban emissions as well as congestion and to make the roads safer, we need them able to function more like Merwedekanaal.

Merwedekanaal. Designed to survive the inevitable flooding.

Density and a lot of green space, with well-managed waterways. Places where people won’t need or want to drive so much, because the alternatives are easier, cheaper and more enjoyable.

Hipkins wants to shut down the anxiety about climate action. It’s understandable. But the climate crisis isn’t going to get better. There won’t be a “good time” to talk about these things.

We have to learn how to do it anyway. Seize the opportunities that disaster gives us. If not now, when?

The Traveller’s Tales: Lessons from European cities. I’m talking to three urbanists recently returned from Europe at the Urban Room, Thursday March 16.

Design for Living appears weekly in Canvas magazine.