Work is due to begin within weeks on an enormous stormwater dam designed to help stop flooding in Whangarei's central business district.
Northland Regional Council has recently bought the final property it needed and about $2.7 million of work to build the dam itself is scheduled to begin in October.
Five houses in Kotuku St, Maunu, will be demolished at the start, and some bush cleared. Another three houses will accommodate workers and be demolished after the dam is built. The houses' construction style means they cannot be relocated.
The council's Urban Whangarei Rivers liaison committee chairman, Craig Brown, said about $5 million of the estimated $8.6 million final cost of the Kotuku detention dam project was spent buying the 20 properties needed to construct the dam in a valley between Maunu and Raumanga. Another several hundred thousand dollars went on relocating power and other utilities.
The contract to build the dam itself - to sit at the ends of Raumanga Valley Rd in Raumanga and Kotuku St, Maunu - had gone to MAP Projects, which aims to have it finished next autumn, Mr Brown said.