Coastal flooding 'to become more common'

The Hawke's Bay coast was battered by high seas in a storm yesterday and overnight. Picture / Hawke's Bay Today

Today's damage at the Hawke's Bay beach resort of Haumoana will become an increasingly familiar sight in coastal settlements as seas continue to rise, a regional expert has warned.

A bach was swept into the sea and another was left teetering on its foundations after huge seas battered the area overnight. Several families were evacuated.

But Hawke's Bay Regional Council environment manager Murray Buchanan said the council would "let nature take its way", and was unlikely to build defences to protect coastal housing.

The council last year released a coastal hazard assessment, which outlined the likely effects of coastal erosion over the next 100 years.

The assessment listed 750 properties in 32 coastal settlements between Porangahau and Mahia that would be identified as lying within a hazard area in land information memorandum (LIM) or property information memorandum (PIM) reports on the properties.

The assessment report recommended a "planned retreat" in the threatened areas, involving phasing out all development in the areas, relocating threatened buildings and providing land further inland where homes could be relocated.

"The sea level is rising. It has risen over the last 100 years, and the experts predict it to rise over the next hundred," Mr Buchanan said.

"This isn't new. There were reports on potential sea erosion at Haumoana in the 70s.

"The question is who's going to pay for it? They residents are the ones who bought there and they are the ones who want the community to come to the rescue for poor decision-making.

"It's rather like building on an active fault line. When your house splits in half you can hardly blame other people can you?"

The regional council is unlikely to build any erosion protection such as groynes or seawalls, but will maintain existing ones.

It may grant resource consents for private individuals wanting to build erosion protection.

"The only way to see those dwellings continue is if they can design, apply for and have consented considerable hard defences. But the reality is they are in a risk zone," Mr Buchanan said.

The council would look at other forms of erosion protection, such as beach renourishment (replacing material that had been eroded) and stricter controls on beach access.

By late morning today the storm had moved south.

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY