West Auckland is Flooding chair Lyall Carter says some residents feel the council is not meeting them halfway. Photo: RNZ / Kate Newton
Lyall Carter does not mince his words when describing the feeling amongst flood affected property owners towards Auckland Council.
"This stinks of hypocrisy at the highest level," the West Auckland is Flooding chairperson says.
Flood affected homeowners have hit out at Auckland Council after they called for homeowners to do their bit to future-proof the city against further flooding.
Council officers are visiting homes to identify major flood risks like roofs without spouting and blocked drains.
But some residents reckon they should be doing more than just doing checks - they say the council has not been doing its own maintenance to prevent flooding and should be paying for the required work.
Council officers have asked homeowners to address flood risks like fences or garden sheds preventing the flow of water through their properties.
While Carter acknowledges residents need to do their bit, he said it is a hard pill to swallow for residents who feel the council is not meeting them halfway.
"The vast majority of people in our community, one of the reasons that they're in the situation that they're in is the fact that council themselves haven't unclogged streams or looked after culverts."
Auckland Council head of sustainable outcomes Tom Mansell said no amount of maintenance would have changed last year's catastrophic flooding.
"Regardless of how clear the streams and overland flow paths were, in some cases, that amount of water would have triggered the floodplain.
"So, no matter what maintenance we had done to the streams, that amount of water at that storm, it would have flooded."
The government has pledged an additional $2 million to help the council clear debris left over after Cyclone Gabrielle and the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods.
That was in addition to the $6m the council has put towards the task.
Carter was grateful for the cash injection from the government but said it does not go far enough.
"That is, a drop in the bucket and we cannot keep returning to the Crown to ask them to top up or to help when it comes to cleaning our waterways, we need to have a strategic program of consistent maintenance."
Mansell insisted that was already underway as part of Auckland's ten year flood risk reduction plan called Making Space for Water.
"Throughout the Auckland region, where there's big trees that have fallen in, we will proactively go in and pull the debris out.
"We have hotspots, and these hotspots are things like bridges or culverts that if they block where that water goes this causes flooding to houses, we visit those very regularly."
Joe Young cleaned up the Waimoko Stream with a few of his neighbours. Photo: Supplied / Joe Young
Current waterway rules state any stream that flows through a private property is the responsibility of the owner, but Carter said many residents do not have the resources to keep them clear of debris.
"It's really not strategic because those people that are responsible for cleaning out the streams on their property do not have the skills or the finance to be able to do it."
Carter wants to see legislative change so that Auckland Council was made responsible for all the city's waterways.
Mansell acknowledged some owners will need help but said putting the council in charge of over 17,000 km of streams was simply too big a task.
"Ultimately, it has to be a partnership approach... the council cannot do this alone and we would never have enough resources to be able to do that."
Of the $2 million provided to the council, $400,000 will be given to community groups carrying out their own clean ups.
But that came too late for West Auckland resident Joe Young, who said he has already spent nearly 400 hours cleaning up a 200 metre section of the Waimoko Stream with a few of his neighbours.
"We never saw anything happen in those first eight months that we were working on the stream so they could have had crew in there doing just what we were doing."
Young was worried those that do apply for funding may be stunted by bureaucracy.
"We went balls out, chainsaws, going with safety and conservation in mind, but we just weren't stopping for nothing.
"We were just going in there and I mean, you can't necessarily have constant public scenarios like that."
