Flooding in Dunedin in October last year. Photo: RNZ / Nathan McKinnon
The Dunedin City Council has given a green light to consult the community on a "milestone report" about the risks facing South Dunedin and possible solutions.
Last week, two major reports showed that half of buildings in South Dunedin remained at risk from surface flooding and that threat was expected to rise in the coming decades.
They outlined seven future plans for climate adaptation ranging from status quo to large-scale retreat with total costs ranging between $2 billion and $7.1 billion over the next 75 years.
During a meeting on Tuesday, councillors agreed to consult the community about what they want for the densely populated suburbs as part of the South Dunedin Future programme - a joint project with the Otago Regional Council.
South Dunedin Future programme manager Jonathan Rowe said the work was a long time coming and helped to detail the problem, the costs and trade offs.
The problem was clear - the community would face more and more water, from sea level rise, groundwater rise, inundation from the coast and harbour and extreme weather, and those threats would continue to rise until some critical infrastructure was expected to fail and be unable to deliver core services, he said.
But he said the good news was there were options to manage the risk.
Now that they had more than a decade of great science backing them, he said it was important to go to the community again and find out what they wanted to do.
"What we're trying to do over the next two to three months is collect those, give people a platform and a voice, hoover all that up and then analyse it and come back to this group of councillors and tell you what that community sentiment is, what's the general direction of travel, what do people think about these options, why do they think it, where do they sit on that spectrum, what level of change are they up for, what rate of change, what do they think is affordable or not," Rowe said.
He was peppered with questions during the meeting, with mayor Jules Radich saying people were very alarmed with the costs and where the billion dollar figures came from.
Rowe said the costs were spread over 75 years and wouldn't be needed immediately nor would all of them fall onto ratepayers as the government, taxpayers, homeowners, developers, investors and banks would also be involved.
Councillor Christine Garey said it was a "milestone report" and while it involved money and decisions, it was focused on people as there was a human cost.
Councillor Steve Walker called it a groundbreaking piece of work.
He didn't believe maintaining the status quo was an option, saying the possible future costs mentioned paled in comparison with the dollar and people cost of not acting, Walker said.
Councillor Brent Weatherall - who voted against the proposal - said it was irresponsible for the council to think about spending billions of dollars on one suburb and people needed to accept this.
"You can't fart against thunder," he said.
Councillor Lee Vandervis also voted against the proposal, saying he believed that the risks were overplayed and it would devalue properties.
People needed to accept that there would always be some flood damage at some time, he said.
Councillor Andrew Whiley said status quo was not an option and it was important to give current and future residents confidence and make the suburb more liveable.
Councillor Sophie Barker said they needed to give the people of South Dunedin hope.
She raised concerns about the timing of the consultation given the community also needed to give feedback on other big projects about the same time, including the council's nine year plan.
Councillor Kevin Gilbert said he didn't agree that people just had to live with the flooding risks and they could figure out the solutions with the information they had received.
Councillor Jim O'Malley said the South Otago community of Kelso was completely removed in the 1980s due to the flood risk and there were a lot of other small communities that would also be in the firing line from hazards so they would need to map those risks too.
He expected there would be a lot of feedback.
The motion to consult the community and endorse the risk assessment and potential adaptation futures reports was carried 13 to two.
In the short term, the Dunedin City Council planned to spend $29 million on pipe and pumping projects in the area to help reduce the extent of the flooding.
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