The flooding of this past week should reinforce to the Regional, Hastings and Napier Councils the need to get on with settling a protection plan for the stretch of Hawke Bay coast from Clifton to Tangoio. The plan will address the increasing threat of coastal erosion and inundation in the face of climate change.

In response to a NZ Coastal Policy Statement issued in 2010, formulating an HB strategy has been over ten years in the making, reaching back to my first term as a Regional Councillor in 2013, with risk studies well before that. 

Under the auspices of the Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy Joint Committee*, huge amounts of technical information have been served up for councils and residents to acquire and absorb – predictions of future conditions, pros and cons of a full range of interventions and their costs (including planned retreat), agreeing on the decision-making framework that would guide ultimate choices and the ranking of their priority of implementation.

And then the politically thorniest question of all: who pays?

So where does all this stand?

Judging from a background paper recently presented at a HB Regional Council workshop, our decisionmakers seem to be in the home stretch.

A proposed coastal protection strategy, reflecting agreement of the three councils, will be put up for adoption by the Regional Council at its 28 August meeting, and then put forward for public consultation in September, aiming for final adoption in November.

As for cost sharing, the proposed scheme 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.

Obviously this approach puts the main burden on the property owners most directly affected, with the wider rate paying community contributing on the basis that essential community assets (roads, reserves, wastewater treatment plants) must be protected as well.

Unknown at this time is the extent, if any, to which the Crown might ultimately come to the party with funding. Obviously that’s a decision that must be taken with a view of the costs of protecting NZ’s entire coastline (or at least its built portions) and the assets sitting on them.

A Local Government NZ report put the cost of endangered councils’ assets alone (i.e., not including private or central government) at up to $14 billion. The Hawke’s Bay risk was put at $1.2 billion, third-highest in the country. Other modelling has indicated that each added 10cm of sea rise puts at risk another 7,000 New Zealand buildings, worth an estimated $2.48b to replace, 133km of roads and 10km of railway line.

It has taken a huge amount of work for HB decisionmakers to get to this point. But our increasing extreme weather events and new science indicating even quicker and greater sea rise dictate that we must come to closure without further delay and get on with the actual implementation.

*The Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy Joint Committee, currently chaired by HBRC Councillor Jerf van Beek, brings together elected representatives from Hastings District Council, Napier City Council and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council with members appointed from Maungaharuru-Tangitū Trust, Mana Ahuriri Trust and Tamatea Pōkai Whenua.

HBRC maintains a dedicated website for this project, where you can sign up for an e-newsletter to keep abreast of progress.