Red-stickered Whanganui house liveable again

In 2015 a crack ran along the front of Jill Gregory's Hipango Tce house, indicating the land underneath could fail. Photo / File

After a five-year effort with many ups and downs Jill Gregory can finally move into her Whanganui house, which was red-stickered after the 2015 flood.

The saga cost her an estimated $130,000 in repairs and $150,000 in lost rent, and the repair took three different retaining wall designs.

In 2015 the Hipango Tce house she had worked hard to own as a solo mother was tenanted and in two flats while she lived on a Parapara farm. A slip below the house during the heavy rain in June made it unstable.

Whanganui District Council put a red sticker on it and 20 other houses in July, meaning it could not be entered without permission. After the civil defence emergency ended the red stickers were replaced by dangerous building notices.

Almost five years on, 16 of the 21 red-stickered houses have been fixed or reassessed and their dangerous building notices had been removed.

Five still have the notices and can be either fixed or demolished.

Gregory was among about 30 people whose properties were affected by slips, and organised a support group. Some of them considered legally challenging the EQC payouts but Gregory decided against it.

The Earthquake Commission (EQC) was willing to pay $65,000 towards the cost of repairs on her house, though its engineer estimated rebuilding the retaining wall it mainly needed would cost $184,000.

After a long search for an engineer to design it, she asked contractors to tender to build it, and I D Loader Ltd was the only Whanganui firm willing to do so.

A second firm told her the job was impossible, and offered to take the house off her hands.

Work finally began in April last year.

When excavation began it became obvious that a change of plan was needed, and the council agreed to amend the existing resource and building consents.

The "huge and impressive" wall is now finished and Hayden Loader honoured a quote made years earlier. The dangerous building notice was removed on March 3 and Gregory can move back in.

It has been a stressful five years, and she has learned it is sometimes better to let things go.

"The money is inconsequential. All that stress is just so hard on your body," she said.

Gregory said the construction company and council had been great to deal with.

"People complain about the council a lot but actually they have been brilliant."