Whirinaki in South Hokianga is on track to become the first entire settlement in New Zealand to pick up and move, with around 260 people and roughly 43 homes preparing for a managed retreat from the flood-prone valley they have lived in for generations.
The decision follows another devastating flood on 26 March this year, when metre-deep, silt-laden water tore through the community along State Highway 12, leaving 65 homes affected and nine uninhabitable. One home burned to the ground in the days after the flood, with damaged wiring blamed for the fire.
The community has been hit hard before. A 1999 flood prompted many residents to lift their houses on stilts or shift them onto higher ground inside the valley, but nothing has been enough to stop the water returning.
About eighteen months ago, hapū members and residents gathered to look at fresh flood maps and concluded for themselves that no engineering fix could keep them safe. Auckland planning firm The Urbanist and Northland Regional Council have since been working alongside hapū to develop a relocation plan that keeps whānau on land they have always called home.
Storm Tautari has been appointed to manage the hapū-led project, with his sister Ruth Tautari, a teacher and the chair of the Whirinaki Trust, helping to coordinate the work. Several blocks of Māori land have been offered by local whānau as possible sites for new homes. Some blocks were ruled out, with one needing an expensive new bridge and others found to be geologically unstable. Two blocks have emerged as suitable, with capacity to take twenty-six homes in a first stage.
Northland Regional Council representative Chantez Connor-Kingi told RNZ the design philosophy was about keeping the community whole rather than scattering whānau. “We didn’t want to create a geographical divide,” she said. “They’re probably the eighth or ninth generation.”
Not everyone is ready to leave. Long-time resident Shane Wikaira described the depth of his family ties to the valley. “My grandfather was here, my great-grandfather, it goes back generations,” he said.
Bridget Wallace, whose home was swamped in March, said she had been on the property when the water surged in. “Within 12 minutes, everything was underwater. We just had time to get the vehicles out. Everything was floating. And I mean everything,” she told RNZ. “I’ve lost everything. Everything that I owned.”
Caregiver Christine Ryder, who looks after her immobile mother, described the night as terrifying. “It was very, very scary,” she said. “Mum’s immobile.”
Other residents are more open to the move. Dwayne Rawiri, a father of eight, said the safety of his family outweighed his attachment to the existing site. “I most definitely would move,” he said. “I have eight children to think of.”
The business case prepared for central government estimates the housing and infrastructure work alone at around $60 million, with a further $26 million proposed for economic development initiatives that would help the relocated community stand on its own feet. About a fifth of the development cost is expected to come from philanthropic sources, with central government asked to fund the balance. Earthworks could begin as early as October if funding is secured, with homes built off-site and craned into place to keep the existing community living together throughout the move.
Whirinaki has not been without flood protection. Previous National Infrastructure Fund work has paid for stopbanks, a deflection bank, a spillway and improved drainage in the valley. The Government has also put more than $1 billion into flood protection nationally since 2020, with $200 million flowing through the Regional Infrastructure Fund. Local engineers concluded those measures could not realistically lift the valley clear of future flood events.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said decisions of this scale needed to be driven by the people who would live with them, telling RNZ that “decisions of this nature are best made at the local level and councils have a leading role.” A National Adaptation Framework is in development, with the Climate Change Commission warning that the country is well behind where it should be on planning for managed retreat.
Climate Change Commission chief executive Jo Hendy said severe weather events were already causing “long-lasting hurt, grief and fear” for affected communities and called for a clearer national approach to how, when and where retreat decisions are made.
For Whirinaki, the next step is securing the central government share of the funding package so the design and earthworks can move from paper to ground. The hapū-led model, with whānau choosing their own destination on their own ancestral land, is also being watched closely by other low-lying coastal and river communities around the country that may soon face similar decisions.
If the funding comes together and the build runs to schedule, the first cohort of relocated homes could be occupied within the next eighteen months. The full move is expected to take several years and will hinge on the willingness of every household to take part.
You can read RNZ’s full report here.
What do you think about managed retreat as a response to repeat flooding, and should central government cover the bulk of the cost when whole communities need to relocate? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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