A plan to put a floodway through a stretch of Wairoa land with 16 homes and 6 hectares of Māori whenua has been recommended by Crown Manager Lawrence Yule.

Wairoa District Council has also endorsed the 170m wide and 2m deep floodway, known as 1C, as its preferred course for the Wairoa River to take in times of flood. The floodway would also run across 18ha of general title land.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council must now decide on its preferred flood mitigation solution for the northern Hawke’s Bay town. It says it will consider all feedback and recommendations at a hui on February 13 before making an informed decision and submitting a business case to the Government by mid-March.

[Editor update: Since this story was filed, HBRC has officially endorsed Option 1C. Now, a detailed business case will be submitted to Central Government by 7 March to secure approval from Ministers for the project to move forward and to release the ring-fenced funding. Concurrent with this process, the Crown is conducting an independent peer review assessment of the proposed solution. Here is the full release explaining the decision and outling the further flood resilience work ahead for Wairoa.]

The deadline is so tight because the Government’s $70 million contribution to the town’s flood protection runs out at the end of March.

The funding was given to the town for future resilience following two devastating flood events – Cyclone Gabrielle’s inundation in February 2023 followed by hundreds more homes flooding in June 2024 as the river mouth blocked during a storm.

Yule was appointed as a Crown manager by the Government to help Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and Wairoa District Council – who were at loggerheads over the cause of the June 2024 flooding – to decide on an effective solution.

But the town has not been unanimous on the idea of building a floodway.

Three organisations – Wairoa District Council, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, and Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust – have discussed at length the merits of both Options 1C and 1D, which would potentially impact six homes, 18.4ha of Māori whenua, and 26.6ha of general title land. Talking points included their technical viability, hydraulic performance, and potential impacts on homes and landowners across Wairoa.

Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust, a post-settlement entity for the iwi and hapū of Te Rohe o Te Wairoa, said it wouldn’t support a specific recommendation and said the decision on a way forward should be made by mana whenua. It said it would support potentially impacted whānau, home and landowners in receiving the information they need to make that decision themselves.

Wairoa District Council said while the recommendations were important steps forward in the process, a preferred solution was still only one part of the process.

“There is still a huge amount of mahi ahead for us all,” a Wairoa council spokesperson said. “It will remain critically important to continue working closely with potentially impacted whānau, home and landowners and the Wairoa community regarding the land access required to deliver flood mitigation for Wairoa.

“We would like to acknowledge those experiencing the most immediate challenges as a result of this important work. There is still a lot to be done, and we appreciate the way the whānau continue to engage with us.”

Mayor Craig Little said, when the options were put to the public late last year, that the project was one of the most significant the town has seen in decades.

“History shows that Wairoa has been impacted by flooding for as far back as records were kept, and yet we have never had any type of flood protection in place,” he said.

“Now, through the Government’s $70 million contribution, we have the opportunity to put solutions in place to help protect the community of Wairoa for generations to come. No decisions have been made yet and there is still a lot of work to be done, but we are making progress.

“We know there will never be a magic silver bullet to stop all flooding, but we absolutely have to do whatever we can to reduce the flood risk and help protect our community.”

[More background here from previous BayBuzz reporting.]

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.