The Northland Regional Council (NRC) is setting up a roughly 10-strong ‘Urban Whāngārei Rivers Flood Management Liaison Committee’ whose members will include several ratepayer representatives, as well as people representing business and commercial interests and iwi.
A Northland Regional Councillor and a Whāngārei District Council representative will round out the committee which will help the NRC develop and implement flood risk reduction plans for the Hātea River and the Raumanga and Waiarohia Streams.
Bruce Howse, the NRC’s Land and Rivers Senior Programme Manager, says nominations for several ratepayer representative positions on the committee open Friday 25 September and can be made until 4pm on Friday 23 October. (Appointments are expected to be confirmed late the following month and the first official meeting held in December.)
Mr Howse says the Council is looking for nominations for a ratepayer representative from each of the following areas:
- the Whāngārei Central Business District/Hātea area
- Waiarohia/Raumanga
- Morningside
- the Port Rd/Commerce St area
As well as those four ratepayer representatives, the Council also wants nominations for someone to represent business and commercial interests within Whāngārei’s Central Business District (CBD).
The new committee will be a sub-committee of the Council’s Environmental Management Committee.
Mr Howse says draft terms of reference – and nomination forms – are available via the Council’s website at www.nrc.govt.nz/priorityrivers or from the NRC’s Water St, Whāngārei, office.
He says the Hātea River and the Waiarohia and Raumanga Streams are among 27 catchments around Northland the Regional Council has already identified as priorities for flood risk planning.
“This is due to the potential threats the rivers and streams in the catchments pose to lives, buildings, road access, infrastructure and agriculture.”
Mr Howse says while urban Whāngārei has not experienced serious flooding for several decades, it was by no means immune from it and a severe flood could cost the local economy tens of millions of dollars.
He says the Whāngārei District Council has already done quite a bit of work investigating flood risk and risk reduction measures for Whāngārei’s CBD.
A WDC strategy was completed in 2007 and public consultation held over potential flood management schemes ranging from $22 million to $56 million but there was little public feedback and a preferred option was never finalised.
Mr Howse says the NRC recently commissioned a peer review of the WDC’s CBD Floodplain Management Strategy to assess limitations and areas for further refinement.
He says how any flood protection works that may eventually be required would be paid for is an issue to be resolved at some as-yet undetermined point in the future “and even then, a decision would only be made after extensive public consultation”.