Flooding at a property in Mount Albert, Auckland, on 1 February 2023.
Photo: RNZ / Rayssa Almeida
Auckland Council has rubber-stamped the plan to pay out the owners of hundreds of flood-damaged houses.
It has unanimously voted to accept the proposed cost sharing deal with the Crown to fund more than $2 billion of flood recovery and resilience works, including buying out category 3 properties.
With the deal, homeowners would be offered 95 percent of the pre-flood market value of their property, with the remaining 5 percent operating like an insurance excess.
Uninsured category 3 property owners would be offered at least 80 percent of the pre-flood market value of their property, which may be increased up to 95 percent in special circumstances.
Mayor Wayne Brown said that a fair balance had to be struck.
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown.
Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
“Eight months on from the floods, many Aucklanders are still dealing with that devastation.
“We have agreed to the government’s proposal to give them a helping hand out of it. That is the right thing to do.”
To go ahead with the agreement, the council would borrow up to $800 million.
Brown said the loan would be paid back by ratepayers.
“Rates will rise. We’re not exactly sure how much, but our public consultation found that 84 percent of ratepayers were happy to contribute towards looking after those people who had suffered severely.
“It is very generous of them and it’s a quite a generous offer to these people, so they’ll be able to get on with their lives without losing much.”
A slip in Remuera on 29 January 2023.
Photo: Supplied/ John Stephens
He said the buyouts would start by the end of October.
“We’re going to start with the easy, clear ones straight away and work through the harder ones.
“We want to get on with this as quickly as we can, but it will take some months to go through the whole 700 [of Category 3 home] of them.
But Brown said the approach should not be seen as a precedent for future buyouts.
“As a council we do not and cannot insure private properties against the hazards of coastal erosion and climate change. Rates are not insurance premiums.
“We have made it clear throughout this process that the government needs to come up with a national scheme, so we’re not just doing things piece by piece with future weather events.”
Wesley, Auckland on 1 February 2023.
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
The agreement also included $820m to fund resilience projects events, including increased maintenance, stream rehabilitation, culvert and bridge upgrades, and overland flow path management.
Another $390m would be put towards the recovery costs of the transport network directly impacted by the storms, including access to Karekare and Piha.
The cost share agreement secured $1.076b in government funding for the projects.
Brown said he was focused on building resilience.
“As mayor, I am particularly focused on the fix-up work required to make our region more resilient to future weather events.
“This deal will enable us to move faster on those plans, rolling out the Making Space for Water programme and reinstating a range of transport infrastructure to help our communities return to a sense of normal.”
He said the council was not expecting a change in government to affect the agreement.
“A new government could break [the contract] if they want to but it would be very unlikely because this has received such strong support from the ratepayers of Auckland, who realise that this is the right thing to do.”
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