A Category 3 Home: Cyclone and subsequent labelling of house shatters dream of coming back to Gisborne

Ron looks out the window during a visit to the Vogel St home this week. The tenants were evacuated during Cyclone Gabrielle, and he remembers seeing them walk out with piles of clothes in their hands. Pictures by Liam Clayton

When Janet leaves her daughter’s Vogel St house, she still locks the front door out of habit.

The place has long been gutted of its contents, Cyclone Gabrielle having turned its interior into a muddy pool by way of a flooded Waimatā River.

Outside, the seemingly untouched lemon tree is one of the few things to have escaped the storm’s wrath.

An inspirational text plastered to the wall of the hallway is a remnant of another existence.

“This is your life,” the quote begins, ironically.

Janet and Ron — who did not wish to give their surname — have been heavily involved in managing the house following the cyclone, for their daughter, who lives overseas.

The tenants are long gone. Their last night at the house was during the cyclone, when they were forced to evacuate at midnight.

The couple recalls them carrying armloads of clothing up the drive.

“He said ‘there’s mud everywhere’,” Ron recalls.

After the floodwaters subsided, both Janet and Ron set to work clearing out the Vogel St address, assuming it could be lived in again.

Builders arrived, and a number of friends chipped in to revive the silt-laden garden.

Janet says her last four months have been a whirlwind of kitchen and carpet stores.

But this month, all progress came to a crashing halt when news arrived the house had been labelled Category 3.

Under the Government’s new rating system, the property was deemed to be in an area where the risk of future severe weather events could not be properly mitigated.

It will be bought out in collaboration with the council.

There are 17 such properties in Tairāwhiti, and a further 1000 Category 2 across the region, where interventions are possible.

“All these houses just being demolished (is) such a waste. We’ve got a severe housing shortage, in theory,” Janet says.

Despite her despondency, she acknowledges the situation is outside her control and the house is “probably not” liveable again.

“We felt like we were moving forward, and now, you just don’t know.

“We’re just focusing on our daughter  coming home.”

The disappointment was felt most keenly by the couple’s daughter, who had owned the property for nine years and hoped to make it her home after a stint abroad.

“She’s gutted that it’s level 3, because she wants to come back here to live. She said it’s such an amazing street.”

Gisborne District Council says there is no specific time frame for payouts and mitigation under the new category system.

Last Friday, Mayor Rehette Stoltz said the council was working closely with the government to find a way to bring clarity to the uncertainty many affected homeowners were feeling.