Ryan Bridge: Building new houses on flood-prone land - here we go again

Here we go again, everybody. They’re planning to build yet more houses on land that we know is partial to flooding. 

This time, it's the Coalition Government, with three housing projects on its fast-track list in Auckland and Canterbury. 

In 2022 it was Labour, they had 700 homes on their fast-track list that were prone to flooding. 

You might think, well, if you want to go and build your house on flood-prone land after Cyclone Gabrielle, et cetera, that's your issue. You pay up. 

But here's the problem with that: we have no hard and fast rule about what rate payers and or taxpayers might have to stump up for compensation. You know, do we buy these houses out? How does it work?  

If they build and it floods, our collective insurance premiums go up. Just this week, we had a letter from big insurers to the Prime Minister and others saying we can't keep up with these payouts, with the increased weather events, et cetera – premiums are going to have to rock it up, stop allowing development on low lying land. 

There's been a select committee report on this, saying we need rules from the government, we need certainty, and we do. 

Who pays what to whom and when, we just don't know.  

And in the meantime, you would think the land that might be at risk of flooding would be put on a slow, rather than a fast track. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here we go again, everybody planning to build yet more
houses on land that we know is partial to flooding.
This time it's the Coalition government with three housing projects
on its fast track list in Auckland and Canterbury, and
twenty twenty two it was Labor they had seven hundred
homes on their fast track list that were prone to flooding.

(00:20):
The land was prone to flooding in Napier. And you
might think, well, if you want to go and build
your house on flood prone land after cycling Gabrielle etc.
That's your issue. You pay up. But here's the problem
with that. We have no hard and fast rule about
what ratepayers and or taxpayers might have to stump up

(00:41):
for compensation. You know, do we buy these houses out?
How does it work if they build and it floods?
Our collective insurance premiums go up. Just this week we
had a letter from big insurers to the Prime Minister
and others saying, hey, we can't keep up with these payouts.
With the more the increased weather of ny etc. Premiums
are going to have to rock it up. Stop allowing

(01:03):
development on low lying land. There's been a Select Committee
report on this but saying, you know, we need rules
from the government, We need certainty and we do who
pays what to whom and when? We just don't know.
And in the meantime, you would think the land that
might be at risk of flooding would be put on
a slow rather than a fast trink. For more from

(01:26):
Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news Talks
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