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Speaker 1: Tour of time, of course, and the war a lot

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Speaker 1: to be thinking about in Europe at the moment, So

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Speaker 1: Catherine Field and France for us in a couple of

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Speaker 1: moments time meantime. Back here Auckland Council I have approved

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Speaker 1: the next steps for flood affected land. By the end

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Speaker 1: of this year, apparently more than twelve hundred high risk

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Speaker 1: climbs will have been purchased the bill of three hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty two million dollars. Large amount of land is

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Speaker 1: going to be retained for flood resilience. Some safer areas

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Speaker 1: could be sold for development. The Auckland Council's Policy and

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Speaker 1: Planning Committee Chair Richard Hills is with us on this

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Speaker 1: Richard morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning mate.

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Speaker 1: Now for the rest of the country not to bore

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Speaker 1: them witless. This comes out of the storm a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago. Why is it taken so long to

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Speaker 1: get here?

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Speaker 2: First of all, it took us quite a while to

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Speaker 2: negotiate with the last government to get a deal, and

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Speaker 2: then it was we had most of last year that

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Speaker 2: people could apply to be categorized, and then unfortunately every

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Speaker 2: single house needed an individual assessment to assess whether it

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Speaker 2: needed to be purchased a lot. So that's engineering flood.

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Speaker 2: You know. I think about three and a half thousand

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Speaker 2: people put themselves forward and we're going to end up

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Speaker 2: with about twelve hundred properties that are a risk to life.

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Speaker 1: So would you argue you've done as well as you can?

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Speaker 2: No, having I would have loved it to be faster.

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Speaker 2: But a lot of people also put themselves in quite late.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's pretty hard for people to decide whether

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Speaker 2: they want to leave the home. They might have lived

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Speaker 2: in their whole lives or for a very long time,

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Speaker 2: and they're starting to see their neighbors being brought out

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Speaker 2: and thinking, okay, I'm going to put myself into. So

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Speaker 2: it has taken it some time, but we're hopefully moving

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Speaker 2: forward this year. A lot of people are happy that

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Speaker 2: they're able to purchase the house.

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Speaker 1: When it comes to flood resilience, are you only looking

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Speaker 1: at the land that got whacked by the storm or

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Speaker 1: are you're thinking more broadly afield what could happen climatically

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Speaker 1: over the next dozen years or so and thinking, you know,

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Speaker 1: along those lines.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we do do that anyway. So there are

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Speaker 2: some projects before the storms, such as in Northcote where

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Speaker 2: we removed a bunch of houses and removed the pipes

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Speaker 2: and roads and made sort of a river through Northcote,

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Speaker 2: which actually fared well during the floods. So we're doing

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Speaker 2: that in conjunction with this work. So there with twelve

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Speaker 2: hundred properties, we want to make them safe. We will

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Speaker 2: look to see if we can sell a big chunk

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Speaker 2: back to the market if we can make them safe.

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Speaker 2: So you've got a house on a slab at the

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Speaker 2: bottom of the section, you may say, you may say

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Speaker 2: we can build it on stilts at the top of

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Speaker 2: the section and sell it back to the market, but

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Speaker 2: a lot of it will be used for.

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Speaker 1: You'll be trying to sell me something on stilts not still, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, piles as opposed to sorry, not stilt.

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Speaker 1: Yes, you're not in real estate retroduce. Stick to the council.

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Speaker 1: And what have you learned out of all of this?

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Speaker 1: In people's dealings? I mean I followed with a great

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Speaker 1: deal of interest out West Auckland. You know the communities

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Speaker 1: out there, and that we've lived here for it, you know,

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Speaker 1: the emotion around it and stuff like that. What have

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Speaker 1: you learned out of all.

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Speaker 2: Oh, look, it's really hard and it's not like the

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Speaker 2: Hawks Bay as time where where you might be able

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Speaker 2: to see from a helicopter where the issues were. In Auckland,

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Speaker 2: you might have two houses the stuffed next to two

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Speaker 2: houses that are fine. So there are areas like Milford

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Speaker 2: where you've got one hundred and forty you know, big

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Speaker 2: two meters of water went through some of those host

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Speaker 2: people climbing on their roofs. I think a lot of

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Speaker 2: Auckland don't know what happened to the people who were

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Speaker 2: hit the hardest, so it's quite quite jarring for people.

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Speaker 2: So it's going to be a long row. People are

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Speaker 2: going to find it hard seeing houses removed from the

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Speaker 2: street they live on. But hopefully over time we'll be

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Speaker 2: able to work with the community better to understand where

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Speaker 2: flooding is and going forward, if we get the government

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Speaker 2: legislation changes, we'll be able to change our planning rules

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Speaker 2: to ensure less of this happens in the future.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff. Richard appreciate it. Richard Hills as an Northland

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Speaker 1: City Council The Golden Visa I knew it was and

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Speaker 1: I'm so pleased it's been proved to be true. Was

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Speaker 1: a good idea. And not only is it a good idea.

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Speaker 1: It looks to be a smash hit. More on that

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Speaker 1: late nineteen two.

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