Auckland Council is making it easier to understand the potential risks from natural hazards like flooding and coastal erosion when buying and selling homes.
From this month, the council has improved Land Information Memorandums (Lims) as part of new legislation and launched a free online tool that allows users to search for flood risk by address and view landslide risk maps by area.
For example, the flood viewer tool (below) shows:
These updates are a response to the 2023 deadly floods and proposed planning rules that restrict development in areas vulnerable to flooding and coastal erosion.
Under the new rules, about 12,000 properties most at risk from natural hazards are being “downzoned”, making new developments on them harder or not permitted at all. Of the properties, 2000 are in flood plains and 10,000 are subject to coastal erosion.
The Eastern Bays suburbs of Kohimarama, Mission Bay and St Heliers, plus Browns Bay on the North Shore, are the areas most impacted by coastal erosion. Flood-affected areas are spread across urban and rural parts of the city.
Peter McNally, who lost his home in North Piha when Cyclone Gabrielle struck the remote coastal settlement, welcomed clearer and more accessible information about hazard risks. But he said the council must take some responsibility for allowing homes to be built on floodplains and other vulnerable areas.
“If someone buys a home in a low-lying area barely above sea level and it floods,” McNally said, “my theory is everything should be pulled back.
“Start moving houses and people away from low-lying areas as fast as you can.”
Council chief engineer Ross Roberts said Lims have always recorded hazard information, but the changes make it clearer and easier to find.
“It’s about ensuring Aucklanders have all the information they need to make an informed decision about where to live and what to buy, and whether there’s anything they need to look into further before moving into a new home,” he said.
Roberts said the council is continually working to gain a better understanding of how natural hazards affect the Auckland region and make this information available to the public.
The information the council holds is updated as often as possible to give an accurate picture of natural hazard risks and is made publicly available online.
This means it’s available to all people who might be affected, not just property owners, so everyone has the opportunity to understand potential risks and can make informed choices around buying, selling or working with professionals to complete assessments.
“Everyone has a different level of risk-tolerance, especially when it comes to property decisions. It’s about arming people with more information so they can make informed choices,” Roberts said.
West Auckland is Flooding (Waif) chairman Lyall Carter said making changes to Lims to make them easier for a layperson to understand could only be a good thing for people to make informed property decisions.
“However, the frequency of those updates can vary according to several factors and the way the council would communicate those changes appears to be pretty indirect.
“If there could be significant changes to the hazard profile of a property at the drop of a hat, how can someone truly make an informed decision?”
Following the 2023 floods, of the 3349 properties registered to be assessed for a future risk to life, 1190 were given a Category 3 status with a serious risk to life.
Of those, the owners of 1059 properties accepted a buyout offer and 394 have been removed.
A council spokeswoman said that with most buyouts being settled, the pace of home removals now had momentum.
However, there were still lots of complexities, including working through multi-unit and cross-lease situations, she said. To date, most had been deconstructed for recycling, one third had been relocated for use elsewhere and the rest demolished as a last resort.
McNally said his property had been bought out, but described the preceding years as “harrowing, stressful, and gut-churning”. The land was now bare and his family had moved to Tawharanui, near Matakana.
“We were building our dream there [Piha]. We got out okay, but we lost so much of what we’d hoped for,” he said.
Meanwhile, public consultation on changes to the city planning rules, including rules to better protect people and property from floods and other hazards, while allowing for greater intensification, is scheduled to begin next week and run until December 19.
The new Plan Change 120 creates capacity for two million more homes over the coming decades, concentrated around railway stations, busy bus routes and town centres. This will be followed by public hearings next year before an independent hearings panel.
Resource Management Act Reform Minister Chris Bishop said now that Plan Change 120 replaces Plan Change 78 – which had the same capacity but spread over every suburb – Aucklanders would decide how and where housing growth happened in the city.
“As requested by Auckland Council, Plan Change 120 will proceed through a 20-month process, an increase from the 18 months initially signalled,” Bishop said.
“As I have said many times, it is important that Aucklanders have robust opportunities to participate in this important process. The council itself has asked for a transparent process and that’s exactly what we’re committed to delivering.”
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