'Floodgate' fiasco costs ratepayers $120,000

More than 28,000 property owners received letters from the council telling them their properties had a 1 per cent chance a year of being at risk of flooding. Photo / Christine Cornege

Hamilton residents have paid tens of thousands of dollars for a flawed process which left property owners angry and worried their homes were at risking of flooding.

Figures released to the Herald reveal the cost of Hamilton City Council's highly criticised "floodgate" process has cost $121,610 so far.

Those costs are expected to grow as the council has vowed to carry out more detailed assessments of the properties deemed to be most at risk of flooding and to better communicate with those affected property owners.

The costs also surprised city councillors yesterday and John Gower said it seemed to be a "hell of a lot of money".

Councillor Dave Macpherson believed it was unnecessary. "Clearly if other councils weren't required to do it, government didn't require us to do it, then why on Earth are we spending $120,000 plus in difficult economic times?"

The actual work - flood hazard modelling and flood maps - was carried out as part of council drawing up a new district plan and cost $100,000 of the wider $471,000 modelling programme.

On top of that, $17,670 was spent on mailouts to tell 28,199 property owners in New Zealand and overseas their properties had a 1 per cent chance a year of being a flood risk.

The costs did not include staff resourcing for the open days, call centre, website and other associated staff work.

Hamilton Mayor Julie Hardaker admitted the process was "badly handled and unnecessary" following large community backlash and councillors were forced to stop it halfway through.

A further $1005 was spent on a community newspaper advertisement apologising for the bad process and telling ratepayers that it had been stopped.

Hamilton City Council city planning general manager Brian Croad defended commissioning the modelling programme.

He said it was carried out to give the council a better understanding of what properties were most at risk of flooding in the event of a significant storm.

The city council said it was required to carry out flood risk assessments under government legislation, but other Waikato councils appear to have avoided doing this by engaging the regional council.

Waikato Regional Council said it had provided flood risk data to Thames-Coromandel, Hauraki, Waikato, Waipa, Otorohanga and Taupo District Councils.

Scott Fowlds, Waikato Regional Council rivers and catchment services group manager, said it offered to provide advice to Hamilton but the recent flood modelling work was focused on localised flooding and stormwater risks were appropriately assessed by the city council.

Ministry for the Environment resource management practice manager Glenn Wigley said there was no new legislation or regulation requiring councils to undertake modelling or to inform people about natural hazards.

The Resource Management, which had been in place for more than a decade, gave councils the function of controlling land use, for the purpose of avoiding or mitigating the effects of natural hazards.

WASHED AWAY

The costs:

* Mailout: $17,670
* Modelling: $100,000 of $471,000 for wider modelling work
* Venue hire for open days: $460
* Facts sheets, information panels: $2475
* Newspaper ad apologising: $1005
* Total: $121,610.