A flood-damaged home in Pakowhai, Hawke's Bay. Photo: RNZ / Soumya Bhamidipati
Owners of flood-wrecked Hawke's Bay properties are inching closer to answers about the fate of their homes.
For some Category 2 communities that need flood protection to be safe, solutions have been found, designs are underway and funding is secured, regional council chief executive Dr Nic Peet told the Cyclone Recovery Committee on Wednesday.
It means those homeowners were a step closer to having their homes declared in safe Category 1, eight months on from the cyclone.
"For those communities that is a long time, and particularly for those communities that, people who have been unable to access either support from their insurers, or support through [Ministry of Social Development's] programmes, that's particularly challenging," Peet said.
"At the same time, designing and building flood defences is usually something that take years, and we're trying to do it in months."
Hope on the horizon for Category 2A
Category 2A was "a challenging place to be," Peet said. Those were areas the council was not sure whether flood mitigation was possible - otherwise described to RNZ by homeowners as "limbo".
If flood protection was possible, they could move to 2C, and eventually 1. If not, they could face a shift to unliveable Category 3, and qualify for a voluntary buyout.
But hope was on the horizon for 40 homes in coastal Whirinaki, north of Napier, and 130 in Pōrangahau in central Hawke's Bay.
Photo: RNZ/ Kate Green
Whirinaki could have answers next week.
"To get us from a 2A to a 2C, we need to have clarity that there's an ability to raise the State Highway over a new stopbank, and that that isn't a fatal flaw to the project," Peet said.
"Waka Kotahi are working with urgency behind the scenes to give us their answer on that, hopefully within the next week."
Discussions with the Pōrangahau community had been constructive, he said.
"There's a high degree of chance that we're going to come out with a solution for that location."
With 600 homes, Wairoa was by far the largest 2A community - and it faced "a pretty complex potential set of options" to deal with flooding, considering it has no flood protection scheme at all.
While $70 million of government money was earmarked to build it, councils were starting from scratch, so the category would not change until a design was agreed.
"I think it's fair to say that communities in those 2A places are really finding this tough, and for lots of good reasons," Peet said.
"A lot of them connected to insurance issues, their ability to potentially start building work on houses and having some certainty, and because the process takes a long time."
A small community on Tangoio Beach Road, north of Napier, had been moved from Category 2A to Category 3, Peet said - so those homeowners would qualify for a voluntary buyout.
Category 2C 'a step along the way' to safety
Category 2C is for properties in areas with an agree flood protection concept and funding is secured.
Those communities - including around 160 properties - were now getting closer to Category 1, Peet said.
Nic Peet. Photo: Supplied / Hawke's Bay Regional Council
For that to happen, the council needed to have done some detailed design work, have secured some interest in the land - either owning it or striking access agreements with landowners - and have funding in place, which required submitting business cases to the government.
Detailed design was "relatively well advanced" for Waiohiki.
There was a "good idea of the solution" at Pakowhai, but detailed design was to come, and Ohiti Road in Omahu had two options on the table that were "buildable and affordable".
"So 2C is a step along the way to 1."
The regional council told RNZ it was meeting with Category 2 communities between now and Christmas to update them on progress and next steps.