I’ve talked already in an earlier blog about planning decisions and the political willingness to ‘formalise’ sea level rise adaption.

An article in the Kansas Star– 16th Oct 2011- about the Lake of Ozarks hydro dam made me think about the importance of such planning decisions to ensure resilience against natural changes.

In the 1950 Lake of Ozarks hydro power dam scheme flooded a valley. Land in the valley was zoned; above the 670feet contour development was allowed. Below this level land was for “dam purposes” alloing for a change in lake levels, flooding events and wave action. Over the preceding decades unregulated development  and encroachment occurred, subject to a  phrase not often used; ”too little red tape”.

Fifty years on, the hydro company have submitted a draft Foreshore Management Plan which documents 100plus encroaching properties and assets below the 670’ contour.

The families that built the homes, with no word of the 670ft contour delimitation, fear their houses are not their own. Houses that have been in families for generations, that they feel were constructed ‘legally’, some more than 40 years ago, are not their own. These houses are now of no value; yes they are free to sell them on, but what we’d know as a LIM/PIMs report would show them as legally floodable  and realistically worthless. Houses cannot be passed to children as inheritance as imagined.  

But who is at fault? The council who allowed development or the people who built the houses and didn’t check the restrictions? Either way the legacy is unpleasant and messy.

Which makes me think about sea level rise in Wellington and land use planning decisions around the coast.  Wellington is planning on sea level to be around  1m higher by 2100, worst case scenario 4m higher. This means large areas of the CBD, Kilbirnie and Lyall Bay would have wet feet. It poses problems for infrastructure assets and services and property around the bays too.

To avoid issues like Lake of Ozarks in 50 or 100 or more years time, we at Council need to make some tough calls and decisions now.

Planning tools and techniques to help inform long-term social, economic, and environmental decisions around the future development of the city, i.e. the use of minimum floor levels, building set backs, development bans and sacrificial land inland, retirement of land and assets, created from sea level rise predictions  are a considerably less troublesome pathway than will result if coastal hazard risks are managed through reactionary measures. This means taking into account the likely impacts when renewing and upgrading assets to ensure that risks and costs are equitably shared between present and future generations.

Ensuring this coastal resilience is the combined responsibility of planning and regulatory agencies, developers, service providers and the community as a whole. It requires collaboration by all these parties to be effective in all senses- outcome, cost, maintainability, capacity to adapt and the Citys resilience.