Simon Dromgool is considering legal action over the Tauranga City Council's slope hazard maps. Photo / Alex Cairns
A Tauranga property owner is considering legal action over the city’s updated slope hazard risk maps, claiming his property has lost value.
And a leading developer says the Tauranga City Council’s reliance on data to produce the updated maps is, in his opinion, “lazy”.
The developer is employing a consultant to try to prove the council’s mapping information is incorrect.
The council says it is aware of concerns about impacts on resale values and insurance and was supporting those who wanted more information. It also says the updated maps are valid and more accurate than before and the hazard mapping was in the best interests of the community to help the city develop safely. It is assessing 35 review requests but says most are unlikely to change the maps.
In October, the council sent more than 1300 letters to property owners informing them local slope hazard zones were updated.
Data from 2019 was used to identify areas of existing or potential slope instability and highlight potential landslide risks and was tagged on property LIM (Land Information Managements) reports.
Last week, the Bay of Plenty Times revealed concerns the maps were “outdated” and “inaccurate”, with Tauranga property industry group Urban Task Force citing issues with sales falling through and withheld settlements despite major land changes for some properties since 2019.
Ōhauiti resident Simon Dromgool this week told the Bay of Plenty Times he believed he had lost property value because of a hazard claimed in the mapping.
He said he was considering legal action.
“I feel I have to. If that failure zone stays on the property, it could be [in my opinion] detrimental for so many.”
Dromgool is one of 35 property owners to request site-specific reviews since the maps were updated. These requests were not related to properties that have had earthworks since 2019, such as Tauriko Business Estate.
Dromgool built his house in 2013. He said geotechnical reports were done on the property and he received the appropriate sign-off before building.
In his view: “It seems to me [the maps are] trying to override the geotech reports. It’s just lazy. It’s too broad of a brush. It’s got to be site-specific.
“When they put that on the LIM report, that red-shaded area is going to raise alarm bells,’' he said, expressing his view.
“If I was looking at a property and there was this large red ink saying ‘failure zone’, I’d walk away. But it’s a geotech [tested] site that [the council] approved to sign off on.”
Dromgool was concerned the mapping did not include mitigating information such as when properties had been geotech-approved.
In his opinion, it was “a nonsense” and “totally wrong”.
“I honestly think it’s bulls***.”
Classic Group director Peter Cooney said, in his view, some properties should never have been given a slope hazard clause.
It appeared to him the updated maps were done via data.
“In my view, it’s lazy and not up to date,” the developer said.
From his perspective: “Now we have to go and employ consultants to prove the reality to council.”
In his opinion: “This is information [the council] should’ve had already. A lot of it is in our resource consents.”
He believed the “onus” had been put “back on developers and builders of the building”.
The process was time-consuming and “expensive”, Cooney said.
Asked how expensive, Cooney said every situation was different but it could be “thousands of dollars”.
It was unlikely Classic would be able to recoup the extra costs, Cooney said.
Tauriko Business Estate director Bryce Donne said it had deferred a settlement with a purchaser while it worked “through this issue with council”.
Donne said about 4 million metres of earth had been shifted in the estate since 2019 and he was “seeking a commitment from [the council] to regularly update the natural hazard maps to ensure that as far as possible, they reflect the current situation on the ground”.
He said the council was right to identify natural hazards, but in his view “this information needs to be current and relevant”.
All estate lots were investigated pre-development with slope stability addressed. Completed lots had the appropriate protection, if and where required, he said.
“We are frustrated for all our recent purchasers that a warning is being flashed up on their brand new property without a clear note also identifying that there is a protection mechanism in place to address the potential hazard.”
In his view: “Without this note, there may be implications for the owner ranging from increased insurance premiums to difficulty selling their property.”
Council general manager of infrastructure Nic Johansson said the council was aware of property owners’ concerns about impacts on resale values and insurance, and the council was supporting those who wanted more information.
He said there was one case where a prospective purchaser had to apply for insurance for their properties and the council was not aware of anyone not being able to get insurance or of the mapping increasing premiums.
The council understood there was a hold on one industrial property sale. Johansson said staff had offered to explain the mapping purpose to the prospective purchaser, “but this offer has not been accepted to date”.
The council was assessing 35 requests for site-specific reviews but “for most of these, it is unlikely that there will be any changes to the mapping”.
“We aim to make the information in our LIMs as clear and transparent as possible.
“It is important that current and future owners understand that their property is in the proximity of a slope so that any future development is supported by a correctly accredited geo-professional … and that they do not do anything inadvertently that might make the situation worse.”
Asked whether the council would consider adding disclaimers or qualifiers to maps, as suggested by Dromgool and Donne, Johansson said any geotech reports, which would include earthworks since 2019 or protection mechanisms in place, were included in LIMs.
The maps were accompanied by wording to indicate they “may not reflect the on-site situation or natural hazard investigations and mitigation done on a property level”. They also warned of the need for a geo-professional to be involved in the development of sites with slope hazards.
Johansson said the council emphasised that one reason it did not take geotechnical reports into account “is that this does not eliminate future requirements for a Category 1 accredited geo-professional to be involved during further development”.
“Therefore the mapping, which is one of the triggers for engaging a Category 1 geo-professional, remains valid.”
Legislation meant councils had to have a good understanding of areas potentially at risk from natural hazards and mapping was the most accepted method to do this. Councils were legally obliged to include this information on a property LIM.
Johansson said that in instances where a “protection mechanism” was in place, this information was expected to be in a geotechnical report.
He said the slope hazard maps were a more accurate update of maps released in 2022.
Kiri Gillespie is an assistant news director and a senior journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, specialising in local politics and city issues. She was a finalist for the Voyager Media Awards Regional Journalist of the Year in 2021.
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