An empty property in Pākōwhai. Photo / Paul Taylor
At this stage, the outcome of an independent review of Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management during Cyclone Gabrielle will not change land categorisation in places like Pākōwhai.
The Heretaunga Plains settlement has become a curious case following the February 14, 2023 flood event.
Seventy-four properties in the area classified as Category 3, which means there’s an intolerable risk to life should people remain on that land.
Equally, 74 other properties are Category 2C or 2C/3, which means they’ll be downgraded to Category 1 once flood mitigation work is complete.
Residents Geoff Downer and Robert Wong find that confusing.
Wong doesn’t understand, for instance, why his Gilligan Road property is in Category 3, when a neighbour opposite him is a 2C.
Nor do the pair get why if 2Cs are downgraded to a 1 when stopbanks are enhanced, the 3s remain the same.
“To us, if they complete this flood mitigation work, the whole of Pākōwhai is either a 1 or a 3. Everybody, every single property,” said Downer, whose Pākōwhai Road property is in Category 2C.
“They’re saying that I’m safe, when the water [on February 14] came through me to get to Robert.”
There’s a lot of complexity about Pākōwhai’s situation.
Just as there is plenty of urban mythology that has run through the minds of residents over the past year; things like blown stopbanks and a supposed Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) plan to flood the settlement in the event of future cyclones.
But Wong and Downer always come back to February 14.
The pair accept there was a risk to life during Cyclone Gabrielle. They know that only too well.
It’s just they believe the risk was caused by failures in the monitoring and evacuation systems, which brings us back to the Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management group review being conducted by Mike Bush.
Their belief is if the system is found to have failed residents in areas such as Pākōwhai, then there should be no risk to life and land categories should be changed.
“That’s a hypothetical question and we currently have no plans to review land categorisation,” HBRC group asset manager Chris Dolley said.
“What we’ve said is the land categorisation process is finalised. If there is materially new information, we’re happy to take that on board.
“So the key words there are materially new information. We believe the information that has been available and the information provided by the community has been taken into account for the decision-making process.”
Dolley says the HBRC held 31 land categorisation meetings with residents across the province. There were 315 inquiries from residents for reassessment of the provisional categorisations between June 1 and September 12 last year and another 38 between October and November when categorisations were finalised.
None of that satisfied Wong, who has used the Local Government Official Information Act to get more comprehensive information about his property from the HBRC.
So much so that, in a letter to Wong, HBRC chief executive Nic Peet said they would consider charging him for any future use of their time.
But Wong and Downer say they won’t be silenced, or give up the fight for all Pākōwhai residents to remain in their homes, no matter how final the HBRC says the categories are.
“The people that are here, a lot of them are elderly,” said Downer.
“They’re of a generation [in which the culture dictated] you don’t argue with your insurance company, you don’t argue with the council, you don’t argue with your doctor.
“They are basically stunned mullets. They are possums in the headlights.”
And, in Downer’s view, they need others to ask questions on their behalf.
To his credit, Dolley answered them all when interviewed by Hawke’s Bay Today, such as the still-circulating claim that Pākōwhai flooded because the HBRC opened a stopbank at Waiohiki.
“You’ve mentioned the word ‘blowout’ there, so it’s an opportunity for me to say there was no such activity, just to put that theory to bed,” said Dolley.
Even if, as confirmed by the HBRC previously, a digger was sent to the stopbank?
“Again, I’ll be really clear, there’s an area of stopbank that was designed in the mid-80s as a relief valve and a digger was mobilised there for options,” Dolley said.
“The digger was not given instructions to dig it up, so we’ve been very clear on that position.”
But that doesn’t stop Downer and Wong believing there are Category 3 properties in Pākōwhai because the HBRC plans to release water there if rivers run high again.
“By the very nature of the geography and the way the land is, any water that comes out of the Tūtaekurī and Ngāruroro Rivers on the inside banks will end up in Pākōwhai,” said Dolley.
“The regional council has not designed it that way. That’s simply a factual statement.
“And any future breach that may occur - because we may have future storms - if the infrastructure stays the way it is, the water will come over the stopbanks and it will end up in Pākōwhai.”
Similarly, Dolley does not believe the $4 million spent pre-Cyclone Gabrielle to build up the stopbanks on the Taradale side of the Tūtaekurī - and not Pākōwhai - was symptomatic of the settlement being seen as expendable.
He does, however, acknowledge “there’s $8 billion worth of built-environment investment” on the Taradale side.
Overall, it’s Dolley’s view that we’re only hearing from the squeaky wheels in Pākōwhai.
“Out of the 315 inquiries [about land categorisation], there were well over a hundred from Pākōwhai and not all of them wanted to stay. In fact, a large proportion were actually wanting to go,” Dolley said.
Wong’s family has lived on Gilligan Road since 1958. He remains dissatisfied with the land categorisation criteria and the answers given to him by the HBRC.
For him, the issue remains a long way from being settled.
Hamish Bidwell joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2022 and works out of the Hastings newsroom.
