A series of slips along the St Marys Bay cliff face has raised safety concerns about four giant pōhutukawa trees hanging over the busy SH1 motorway - in the same area where several multimillion-dollar homes are teetering on the cliff-edge.
Several slips along the cliff above Auckland’s Westhaven Marina, on the approach to Auckland Harbour Bridge, have led to one house being red-stickered - which meant the property could not be used or accessed without the consent of the council - and at least two yellow-stickered, which indicates moderate damage and restricted access.
Residents have this week outlined a number of concerns and anger they have with Auckland Council - to the extent one said they would now not want to stand on their neighbour’s deck.
“Don’t get too close to the edge because it’s more or less Cave Creek,” Ken Browne, who lives on London St, told RNZ, heading towards his neighbour’s property. “There’s the remains of pohutukawa trees down the bottom there. They’ve been here for absolutely donkey’s years, they’re not small trees. You’ll see the house is precipitously hanging on the edge and the neighbour’s deck is supported by one pile. I wouldn’t even want to stand out there.”
Gordon Liu lives in the house closest to the motorway and fears one or more of the pōhutukawa trees could fall onto a walkway or, worse still, traffic on the motorway “A landslide would have a catastrophic result,” said Liu, who has a large slip on his boundary and whose house is about 10m away from the motorway.
The engineer said he has worked in East Asian countries like Bangladesh and Thailand which regularly experience tropical downfalls, but never experienced the short, sharp intense rainfall that fell on Friday night and again this morning.
Liu’s son, Kevin, said the ground looks to be stable now but the ground is not as stable as before the record-breaking rainfall.
Gordon Liu, a resident at the end of Amiria St for about 10 years, said he had asked Auckland Council if he could trim the pōhutukawa tree on his property. “They said you can’t cut the tree, it’s a pōhutukawa tree, you can’t do that,” he said.
As well as the pōhutukawa tree on his property there are three other pōhutukawa on the cliff face in front of his house which are the responsibility of the council, he said.
Liu said Friday’s rain brought a cascade of water onto his property and into the swimming pool that overflowed into the house. A manhole on his driveway was “popping up like a bomb” with overflowing water down to the backyard towards the motorway.
A question puzzling Liu is how Auckland Council has spent a huge amount of money building a new storage tunnel for wastewater and stormwater under the St Marys Bay cliff to Pt Erin, which, he said, made no difference on Friday and today.
“We were told if we build this project there will no need to worry about any flooding,” said Liu, whose garage was dug up to lay a large new pipe for the project.
Some residents of Amiria St and Ring Terrace, where multi-million dollar properties sit on the cliff edge with panoramic views of Westhaven marina and Auckland Harbour Bridge, did not want to talk about the floods and slips.
Sue Brookes, who has lived in Amiria St for three years, regarded herself as one of the lucky ones, saying her 100-year-old cliff-top house is “solid as because it is built on rock”.
“Clay has gone from the cliff but not the rock,” she said.
Brookes said the path of Friday’s rain was a “waterfall” coming from Shelley Beach Rd, down Hackett St, and into Amiria St and Ring Terrace. This morning it was gushing water from a manhole, she said.
Further, towards the city end of St Marys Bay, a large pōhutukawa tree collapsed onto a small reserve and a big slip occurred on Wednesday morning, potentially threatening a deserted house and a recently renovated villa in St Marys Bay Rd.
A Waka Kotahi spokeswoman said the transport agency uses Auckland System Management(ASM) to maintain the city’s state highways and clear all potential hazards, including trees.
In the case of a landslip at St Marys Bay on Wednesday that saw a tree smash through the noise wall/barrier between a walkway at the base of the St Marys Bay cliff and the motorway, she said ASM had removed it.
The Herald is seeking comment from the council.
Earlier this week, St Mary’s Bay residents blamed the council for the massive slips that left some homes hanging precariously over the northern motorway approach to the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
They say blocked drains and a poorly designed stormwater system meant torrents of water poured between homes in the dress-circle suburb, undermining the cliff face.
Karl Browne’s two-storey home on London St was built in 1908 and commands fabulous views of the Hauraki Gulf - views that this week came closer and closer.
The aftermath of Friday’s storm was “absolute carnage”, he told RNZ.
“We’ve got four properties in a row affected. I’ve probably lost 70 square metres of my property, the neighbour’s lost maybe 100 to 120 square metres of their property. It’s still slumping. Every day I’m taking measurements of these big cracks that are coming out and how far down they come.
“Don’t get too close to the edge because it’s more or less Cave Creek,” Browne said, heading towards his neighbour’s property. “There’s the remains of pohutukawa trees down the bottom there. They’ve been here for absolutely donkey’s years, they’re not small trees. You’ll see the house is precipitously hanging on the edge and the neighbour’s deck is supported by one pile. I wouldn’t even want to stand out there.”
Browne was pretty certain what the problem was.
“Essentially what actually happened is that the overflow from the road was diverted down through the properties because the drains were blocked. The design of the drains is insufficient to cope with it.
“The fall of the road channels the water down between the properties. It’s come down here and it’s just hydrauliced the cliff face completely out and pushed fences, gardens, retaining walls, everything down to the bottom of the cliff.
“I’ve been talking to the council about this for two-and-a-half years now.”
Browne said a recent $40 million investment in new stormwater infrastructure in the neighbourhood was not up to the job.
He was considering taking a class action against the council.
Christian Arns lives on the other side of the street, and he was not happy either.
He had called in Watercare Services.
The stormwater system was so overwhelmed that his garage and those of his neighbours were flooded, he said.
“The water came up through the wastewater because the wastewater was blocked and went back into our garage, so we had to cover the wastewater drainage off with lids because there was just fountains of water coming out.
“There’s a manhole in our driveway and it’s got a metal lid and that popped out and the amount of crap that came out of that hole was not pretty.”
Brent Hellier also had a stormwater lid pop in his driveway, but that was not his only issue.
“This drain on the street had a leaf trap underneath it with 5mm mesh and it just blocked up and flooded down our driveway.
“The issue is with all the leaves from the trees - it beautifies the neighbourhood - but nobody cleans it. I understand Auckland Transport looks after that, but they don’t do anything about it.”
They allege the Crown ignored Treaty obligations by not engaging with them.