Lake Ōkāreka Community Association chairman Mitch Collins points to the water level marker. Photo / Laura Smith
Lake Ōkāreka Community Association chairman Mitch Collins points to the water level marker. Photo / Laura Smith
A Lake Ōkāreka leader has won a bureaucratic battle over whether the village should be on a list of vulnerable communities prone to flooding.
Mitch Collins, chairman of the Lake Ōkāreka community association, says it should never have been on the list, fearing insurance impacts for residents.
And now the Department of Internal Affairs has agreed the settlement does not fit the list criteria.
The department said the desk-top exercise, prepared quickly and without public consultation after major flooding in Buller last year, aimed to provide national-level information on the scale of vulnerable communities’ exposure to flood risk.
But Collins argued the report was based on outdated data and did not take into account recent local flood mitigation work.
In his view: “It’s very irresponsible especially given it was not put out for public consultation.”
Initially, 75 communities with relatively high levels of socioeconomic vulnerability and exposure to flood hazard were identified, but this was narrowed down by 31 because of either planned flood protection works or because an in-depth analysis of surface flooding in heavily urbanised locations was excluded from the report.
Several Bay of Plenty communities were identified, including Ōpōtiki, Waihi Beach/Bowentown, Maketu, Te Puke, Rotorua and Lake Ōkāreka.
The report says vulnerable communities are potentially less able to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
But Collins said the Lake Ōkāreka area was not socio-economically vulnerable, and he believed it was no longer flood prone given Bay of Plenty Regional Council upgrades, completed last year, to better manage the lake level and accommodate future climate change effects on the lake.
Since the 2017 flood that spurred the works, the area had seen no significant flooding in spite of numerous heavy rain events.
“In theory, and hopefully in practice, that flood risk is gone.”
Collins felt the report was rushed, lacked community consultation and did not take into account easily discoverable records on the regional council’s website about the works.
He worried the lake community would be disadvantaged by the report, including potentially facing higher insurance costs as other flood-prone areas had.
“Once you started calling a community at flood risk, with new legislation coming in around managed retreat, we are in danger of insurers saying they will increase premiums on the house, or not cover us.”
The Tonkin+Taylor report noted it was prepared in a relatively short timeframe using the best available data.
It layered flood hazard modelling data from multiple sources with the New Zealand Index of Deprivation to show communities with both a high level of socio-economic vulnerability and exposure to flood hazard.
The report said it identified a range of potential criteria that can help understand the ability of wider district communities to fund any increase in payments to a council.
Lake Ōkāreka was listed in a report that identified vulnerable communities exposed to flood hazard. Photo / Laura Smith
These included median household income, percentage of people aged over 65, and percentage of people considered in the deprivation index’s most deprived range.
Statistics New Zealand was unable to provide the median income for Lake Ōkāreka to the Rotorua Daily Post. However, the wider Kaingaroa-Whakarewarewa statistical area had a median household income of $84,500 as of the 2018 Census, with 12-15 per cent of residents over 65.
The deprivation index scored most of Lake Ōkāreka as decile one - least deprived - but one small area as level 10, or most deprived.
The index is based on the Census and factors in nine variables such as homes without internet access, unemployment, qualifications, home ownership and damp or mould.
The usual resident population was 99, and there were 51 dwellings, including 36 occupied private dwellings and 15 total unoccupied dwellings.
Collins raised his concerns with the local government associate minister Kieran McAnulty in November.
He received a reply, on December 5, in which McAnulty says Collins’ concerns were passed to officials involved with the report.
“The intent of the report was to provide initial information to inform discussions about where support is needed for our most vulnerable communities.”
As such, McAnulty said the report provided a valuable starting point, which officials work to refine to understand the hazards communities faced.
McAnulty said the online version of the report would be updated to reflect the flood protection works by December 2.
The report was updated with a note, dated November 25: “This report presented a snapshot in time of the flood hazard New Zealand vulnerable communities face. Since the release of the report further information has been made available that shows flood protection infrastructure has been built at Lake Ōkāreka.”
Asked by the Rotorua Daily Post for a response to Collins’ concerns, Department of Internal Affairs partnership director Paul Barker said the desk-top exercise, prepared in a short timeframe not involving public consultation, was undertaken to provide national-level information on the scale of vulnerable communities’ exposure to flood risk.
It used information supplied by experts to give an initial indication of those areas at risk.
He said the Kaingaroa-Whakarewarewa statistical area had an overall deprivation index score of 7 (moderately deprived), but significant variation within that.
“While the village is not ‘deprived’ per se, it is in a general area where there are very low socio-economic characteristics and this was the focus of our work. We (DIA) did not have access to the individual mesh block data showing specific flood risk in relation to deprivation.”
Asked if Lake Ōkāreka will be removed from the list, the department confirmed that, since obtaining the information about the flood protections works, Lake Ōkāreka did not fit the report criteria as a vulnerable community exposed to flood hazard.
He said ongoing work and research from a variety of sources would make it “much easier to model flood hazards on a national basis” in future.
The department’s work included a programme aiming to strengthen overall resilience to natural hazards and climate change, as well as better communicate hazards to property purchasers.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council integrated catchments general manager Chris Ingle agreed Lake Ōkāreka should not have been in the report, given the flood mitigation works.
“As a result, regional council has advised the Department of Internal Affairs that Lake Ōkāreka should not have been included as a vulnerable community.”
He also noted the report’s “important” intent to provide initial information to inform discussions about where future support may be needed.
“[The] council looks forward to continuing to work with the sector and consider any wider direction proposed by central government, while continuing to engage our communities in responding to climate change.”
Collins said the association was fortunate to have had support from the regional council and looked forward to seeing further work.
