A briefing with those working on the Maitai River. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
Some residents in Nelson are still waiting for their homes to be repaired six months after they were displaced by flooding.
Today Prime Minister Chris Hipkins met those working with in the community hub, spoke to slip affected residents in the Tāhunanui slump zone and saw protection works occurring along the Maitai River banks.
Nelson City Council figures show there are still 15 red stickered homes and 68 with yellow stickers following the floods in August. Around 30 families are unable to stay overnight in their homes.
Hipkins was realistic about the timeline for flood recovery.
"There aren't quick fixes, there aren't overnight solutions to some of the issues that they'll be grappling with.
"I think one of the strengths of having those connectors, those people to help navigate the system is that they can make sure that people know what they're dealing with, they can give them a more realistic expectation of the sorts of timeframes involved."
Nelson was making great progress after last year's flooding and that experience would be built into the recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle, he said.
Yellow stickered residents Greg Bate and Ellie Fijn talk to Prime Minister Chris Hipkins about their concerns. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
Greg Bate and Ellie Fijn's house on the Tāhunanui Hills remains yellow stickered while they wait on geotechnical plans for a palisade wall to stabilise the land after it shifted last August.
Fijn said while there had been good support, it was a complex process to navigate.
"None of us could figure out EQC and that was the big thing, I mean, we're still talking to neighbours and saying, 'well, I think we do... and I think this..." so it's just not clear.
"For me it's like having to get a master's degree in algebra to try and understand it."
Bate said he wanted to see more action on climate change, and raised his concerns with the prime minister.
"I feel like National and now maybe Labour are kicking the can down the road on solving the bigger issues and we don't want to just be focusing on fixing this little problem that little problem - it really is time we had some big action for our grandkids to try and solve these things."
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins speaks to Nelson residents John Roosen and Susan Rogers whose home was initially red stickered in the August weather event. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
Further along on the Tāhunanui Hills, John Roosen's home was initially red stickered but he was allowed back in after further inspections. Others have not been so lucky.
"The process has been dragging on and I know it's been going on for a number of people around the neighbourhood.
"It can't be like the earthquake in Christchurch, we need to learn from those events and we need to start saying, there's people's lives here, and they need to get back to their homes and find some answers."
Roosen wanted the government to make it clear where houses should and should not be built and said any new builds in the Tāhunanui slump zone should include community consultation.
"They need to come up with a new set of rules that include setbacks... and some areas simply need to be permanently restricted from building on."
Remediation work in the Maitai River to remove gravel and replace it with rock for future flood protection. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
Nelson Mayor Nick Smith said there were some properties in the Tāhunanui slump area where people may not be in the position to rebuild.
"They are a small number but I have been talking today with the prime minister about some of the new legal instruments that we need, not indifferent to climate change, around managing that sort of retreat."
While good progress had been made on insurance payouts - over 50 properties were affected by landslides - those were the difficult cases that will take some time to work through, Smith said.
"We've got all the geotech reports, now it's doing the design and the economics of the fix. That is going to be a piece of work that's going to drag out for Nelson and when I look at the sort of damage in communities likes of Auckland, and Hawke's Bay, Gisborne, it's those landslide problems that are slow, difficult, frustrating and costly."
The cost of Nelson City Council's infrastructure repairs from the August event was estimated at $57.1 million, with $16m spent to date.
Some of that cost would be recovered from insurance and government support, with the remainder likely to fall on ratepayers.
Smith said that did not include the cost of landslides on council property that affected private residents - which is expected to cost at least another $10m.
