Maybe ‘meows’ would be a more apt description.

Three major ‘resilience’ agenda items occupied the HB Regional Council in its first session of the year.

First, Councillors received the unpleasant news that key funding for future Whirinaki flood protection – about $12 million expected from the Government (NZ Transport Agency) to cover State Highway 2 asset improvements critical to the area’s overall mitigation plan – was no longer available.

This, plus revised stopbank requirements and costings, means a project that was anticipated to cost HBRC $11.05 million will now cost $26.94 million.

HBRC intends to apply for funding from a different Government pot – the Regional Infrastructure Fund – to re-plug the gap. So Council will now wait anxiously for that decision. 

Without Government grant funding, HBRC will need to borrow for this major investment in HB’s economic resilience – in this case helping to protect Pan Pac, Transpower and Contact Energy facilities as well as the Category 2C properties in the Pohutukawa Drive area.

As Councillor Martim Williams remarked, reflecting on the economic importance of Pan Pac, “We cannot not do this.” Pan Pac’s total employment is 3,210 – equivalent to 4.1% of all FTE employment in the region – while contributing 6.3% of the region’s GDP. Councillor Neil Kirton added that protecting industrial assets like Pan Pac and Awatoto reflects the Regional Council’s appropriate role in supporting regional economic development.

In a second decision, HBRC affirmed what has been signalled in workshops for months – formal public consultation around the new Coastal Hazards Protection Strategy, developed over the last ten years, will not occur in 2025. HBRC has too much other business on its plate. A ‘consultation-lite’ process, including engagement with a new ‘Community Reference Group’, will be undertaken this year, primarily focused on the cost-sharing aspects of the strategy, with $300,000 allocated for that. 

As BayBuzz has previously reported, the proposed funding formula is built around nine coastal units from Clifton to Tangoio, each with its intervention plan, timetable and costs. The costs are divided three ways:

• 70% of the cost to implement the works are proposed to be met by all properties within the unit. These costs are then allocated to individual properties based on three categories being high, medium or low risk of inundation.
• 25% of the cost to implement the works are proposed to be met by the subregion (Napier & Hastings), as the works preserve the value of council amenities that are close to the unit.
• 5% is allocated to the whole region (including Wairoa & CHB), as there are assets that benefit the region that will be protected by the Coastal Strategy works.

Unstated in this HBRC discussion, but of huge importance, is pending climate adaptation legislation that Climate/Local Government Minister Simon Watts has committed to introducing this year. He has signaled that ‘who pays for what’ is the central issue to resolve and that this needs to be settled on a cross-party basis. The implication has been that some Government funding will be provided. Watts said to NBR recently: “This is one of the most significant fiscal risks on the Crown’s balance sheets in the decades to come and we need to be prepared for it.” Our councils are waiting with bated breath … and that’s probably the real reason for slowing down the public consultation process.

HBRC emphasises that specific urgent coastal protection projects will proceed in the interim with cooperation promised amongst the Regional, Hastings and Napier Councils. Presumably these will be reflective of options identified in the ‘pending’ strategy.

Finally, the Regional Council held a public-excluded discussion of the mysterious ‘Heretaunga Water Storage Project’. Remarking on the historic public controversy surrounding water storage proposals, Councillors Sophie Siers and Xan Harding urged that, this private discussion aside, HBRC should endeavour to bring this project’s examination into the public domain as soon as possible.

No doubt proponents of the apparently overlapping Tukituki Water Security Project (i.e. Ruantaniwha Dam 2) would heartily agree.