Sandbag solutions to despair over flood havoc

HDC water and waste services manager Paul Gaydon with some of the sandbags being prepared for delivery to the lates flood-affected residents at Foxton and Foxton Beach who want them in readiness for a future high rainfall event.

Foxton and Foxton Beach residents whose properties flood regularly due to poor or no storm water infrastructure, have finally got some reassurance from Horowhenua District Council.

Emotions were running high at Monday's Foxton Community Board meeting, where residents shared their frustrations over continual flooding issues that are hiking up their insurance premiums, shaving "thousands" off the value of their properties and causing them anxiety every time it rains.

Blue Bell Motel owner Rohan Teaz wanted 20 sandbags to be dropped off to his property this week in readiness for the next high rainfall event.

He said when he requested sandbags from council at 6am on the morning of the last flood, the bags didn't arrive until 4pm - too late to save the motel from water damage.

"Renovating the Main Street is a great idea but we have to get the infrastructure right first."

Another flood victim, Joy Hansen did her best to hold back tears as she described how she'd had a "guts-full", especially after losing a new carpet in the recent flood.

"You get [rates from our section] and what do we get? Wet feet when we step out of bed ... it's about time you do something about it," she said.

Hansen's neighbour, Robert Hair, said he had seen "thousands washed off" his house valuation, and seen soaring insurance excesses. "How can you sell a property that is prone to flooding? It was never mentioned when I brought it."

He said they were all elderly people and the effects of the flooding affected their health.

Council agreed at the meeting to deliver free sandbags to the most recently flooded residences, undertake maintenance on the affected areas and to address the wider issue of storm water infrastructure in its 2018-2024 Long Term Plan.

Community board member Jenny Lundy acknowledged the frustration levels and hoped that the agreement at the meeting would help move things along.

Council's infrastructure services group manager, Gallo Saidy said storm water was a big problem in the entire district and could not be solved by reacting to individual problem areas.

"We are looking at it on a higher level, at the whole district ... looking at the amount of storm water coming through the towns and whether the pipes we have now can handle those flows and, if not, where the bottlenecks are. This is referred to as the Catchment Management Plan."

He said most properties depended on soak pits but they didn't work in areas such as Foxton where the ground water level was very high.

Saidy said they were also working with Horizons, and looking at the water run-off from farms.

He said a lot of water comes from farms into the storm water system which is not designed to cope with it.

HDC chief executive David Clapperton said the storm water catchment investigations for Foxton and Foxton Beach would be presented to the community through a community engagement programme with a view to developing an agreed solution for storm water management in the area to be incorporated in the 2018-2028 Long Term Plan.

"What we have to take into consideration is we might fix one problem but create another, if you're not looking at it in a holistic context ...We need to be looking at a long-term sustainable solution to storm water catchment in our two towns [Foxton and Foxton Beach]."

In followup phone calls to arrange delivery of the sandbags the next day to the latest flood-affected residents, only Mr Teaz took up council's offer.

He said that for some properties sandbags wouldn't be enough anyway, and that the weight of them would be challenging for some residents, particularly the elderly.