Land slip assessors in Whangārei waiting for rain for more geotech work

A huge amount of top soil has been removed from land that is slumping off Manuka Place and assessors say rain may impact the site. Photo / John Stone Photo / John Stone

A better assessment of the state of slumped land that resulted in a house being condemned in Whangārei will be made when it next rains.

The Whangārei District Council, developer Stan Semenoff and the Earthquake Commission are monitoring the site off Manuka Place in Raumanga where slips were noticed nearly seven months ago.

House owner Tony Stringer and his wife were moved to temporary accommodation after a WDC engineer found extensive cracks in their house on Manuka Place in late August.

Asphalt put on a slumped roundabout directly across their property have sagged further, while top soil in other parts of land being developed by Semenoff have been removed while geo-tech tests were ongoing.

WDC general manager infrastructure Simon Weston said to obtain a robust picture of the geotechnical situation, a wider range of weather conditions needed to occur before the information could be considered complete.

"As has been widely reported, this has been the driest 18 months on record in our district, and we know that rain, when it does come, may have an impact on this site.

"When that happens we will be have more information with which to assess the state of the land," Weston said.

Tony Stringer's condemned house is still cordoned off while assessors are still working on the slip on land bordering his property. Photo / John Stone

In March 2016, the Northland Regional Council issued Semenoff consent to undertake about 152,000cu m of cut and fill earthworks, including within the bed of an unnamed tributary of Limeburners' Creek.

NRC water and waste monitoring manager Alison McHugh said there was no "real rule" on when geotech reports needed to be ready.

She said NRC was mainly concerned about soil, sediment, and erosion controls as per the resource consent.

McHugh said an NRC monitoring officer was in close contact with WDC and its contractor over the issue.

Northpower has lines running over the slumped land and network general manager Josie Boyd said the company was liaising with WDC around rerouting the lines along the road.

"We are now in the planning stages and liaising with Council around rerouting these lines along the road."

She said work was expected to start within three months and finish in two to three weeks.

An Earthquake Commission report in September found a combination of rain and earthworks led to structural damage the Stringers' property and slumped land around it.

The Stringers are still staying in a flat owned by his employer in Whangārei.