Call for care over flood risk label

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 26

Call for care over flood risk label

PA Tauranga Great care should be taken before Government agencies rush ahead labelling communities as flood risks, according to the president of the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, Mr Bill Matthewson.

He was commenting on a Waikato University study into flood control programmes in New Zealand which shows that since 1941 more than $1 billion has been spent on flood control work.

Spending by local communities and the taxpayer is now running at about $3B million a year, but the study’s authors say these attempts to control natural forces are inadequate and a poor investment.

Instead they suggest flood-prone areas should be identified more positively in planning maps with urban development being steered away from such areas.

Lending institutions and insurance companies should have a clearer idea of the

dangers in dealing with land at risk from flooding. People buying in such areas should also be made well aware of the facts, the study said.

Mr Matthewson said there were serious implications for people owning property which was labelled as a flood risk as values would certainly plummet. “Back in the 1940 s someone pointed out that if the sea broke in to the crater at White Island, the resulting explosion could produce a 40ft tidal wave that would swamp the Bay of Plenty coastal area,” he said.

“I was not selling land then, but I am sure those reports inhibited land sales in Mount Maunganui, Tauranga and Whakatane far a long time.”

If insurance companies loaded premiums on floodprone land, land values would definitely be affected and people in rural areas could have difficulty obtaining cover on homes and other buildings, he said.