Muriwai residents let their exasperation show at what many of them feel has been a failure of communication by Auckland Council.
A community meeting at the Muriwai Golf Club on Thursday night was interrupted variously by laughter or jeering when representatives from the council could not provide the answers these residents were looking for - most importantly, when they might be able to re-enter their homes.
There are 128 red-stickered properties in the West Auckland settlement, with an additional 48 yellow-stickered.
"Tell us how long we're going to be homeless for?" one resident at the meeting yelled.
"I can't tell you that -" replied Auckland Council regulatory services director Craig Hobbs.
"That's not good enough, yous have all the technology, yous kicked us out of our homes without giving us an answer, and we're all homeless."
The message from council, a cry for more patience: "As yet, we still do not understand enough about that slope to start putting folk into that area, it's as simple as that," said Auckland Council building consents manager Ian McCormick.
Residents were also angry there was no geotech expert at the meeting.
McCormick said based on the latest surveying, some properties in the area might have their placards moved down a level, from red to yellow, or yellow to white.
But that was little consolation for the owners of 75 properties on the slip-ridden Domain Crescent that still have not undergone initial assessments.
"We haven't individually assessed each individual building there because that's too dangerous to do, in fact even our FENZ team had to withdraw from there and that was the last time we were up there," McCormick said.
When assessments could take place, these properties were likely to be red-stickered, he said.
Jane Scott, whose home falls into this category, said the more-than-an-hour drive from her temporary accommodation to the meeting was not worth it.
"Well I thought that was an absolute waste of time," Scott said.
"We just need answers as to when we can go back and when we can access my car, my car is still there, when I'm going to get red-stickered, I'm in Domain Crescent, and I just felt like they didn't tell us anything really, they didn't even have a geotech engineer here to tell us what the situation is with the cliff."
Although Auckland Council representatives spoke for about three quarters of an hour, Scott came out with many unanswered questions - the most pressing of being when she could go back inside her home.
"Is it weeks? Is it months? Is it years? Is it never? Can we never go back in?"
Scott's neighbour, Mary Ann Paterson, said the future of her home and way of life had been left up in the air.
"I've been coming here all my life, and I love Muriwai. But I'm not so sure now about whether I want to go back into my home, I feel in danger."
Brent Ritchie had not been able to access his home at all since the cyclone.
He knew it had been red-stickered in a rapid building assessment, but he had seen no photos or evidence of damage or risk.
What he had received was a letter from council saying a sticker would show up on his property's Land Information Memorandum (LIM), possibly affecting its value well into the future.
"It's a little bit unfair to send us a letter tagging our properties, saying that this will appear on your LIMs forever, when it was a 20-minute assessment, so I think the council need to back up and do proper evaluations and then discuss that with land owners before there's a final decision or any list created about that."
Ritchie expected his red sticker would be downgraded. He said it would be wrong to mark the property's permanent record based on the initial rapid assessment.
"I think that's premature and inappropriate because as they mentioned tonight, they haven't assessed every property individually. So I think there's been a breakdown in communication with council maybe, they've been jumping the gun on that."
Auckland Council's Craig Hobbs said he understood residents' frustration.
There was scope to reassess and change coloured stickers where appropriate, Hobbs said.
"It was done in a hurry. If we believe we've got it wrong, we can reassess and we can downgrade."
But without a change in legislation, the council said it was bound to include the initial assessments on LIM reports.
There would be another opportunity for people to drop in and discuss their individual properties with experts on Wednesday, Hobbs said.
But they still would not be able to provide answers for those with homes in the most at-risk zone.
"It'll be where we've actually assessed a property, giving people some idea of the situation their property is in and where to from here," Hobbs said.
"If it's the likes of Domain Crescent where we haven't been able to get in to assess, to be honest, we can't tell them anything because we don't know."
