Thousands of South Dunedin residents are coming to terms with a future in which their street might one day be turned into a wetland, a canal or a pumping station. The joint South Dunedin Future programme, run by the Dunedin City Council and the Otago Regional Council, has narrowed seven possible responses to rising flood risk down to three, and every one of them involves buying and demolishing more than 1000 homes in the low lying suburb.
Depending on the option chosen, between 1100 and 1700 of South Dunedin’s roughly 6500 properties could eventually be purchased to make way for public works, raised land and green space. The buying would focus on the part of the suburb known as The Flat, the area judged most exposed to flooding, rising groundwater and coastal water problems. Programme staff say most of the acquisition would happen over the first 25 years, with a stated preference for willing, voluntary sellers rather than forced purchase.
The three shortlisted options have been labelled protect, restore and reshape. Protect leans on engineered defences such as raised land and pumping systems and carries a 100 year price tag of about $2.1 billion. Restore is the cheapest at roughly $1.63 billion and makes more room for water through wetlands and canals. Reshape is the most far reaching, combining land raising with relocated infrastructure, at about $2.45 billion. All three set aside at least 14 hectares for water storage and wetlands, and all three front load the cost and disruption into the first quarter century.
The figures sound enormous, but the programme argues that doing nothing would cost more. Modelling presented to the councils suggests average annual flood damage could climb from around $11 million now to as much as $212 million over the long term if the suburb is left as it is. Programme manager Jonathan Rowe told reporters the headline finding was a hopeful one. “The encouraging finding is that, even as flood hazards increase, it is feasible to significantly reduce risk,” he said. He added that the projected costs had come in “lower than we had anticipated”.
For many residents, the relief that the problem can be managed has been overshadowed by how they found out their homes might be on the list. People learned their properties sat inside possible acquisition zones during public briefings, rather than through any direct letter or call from the council. Resident Lynne Newell described the shock of seeing the scale of what was proposed laid out in front of her. “This land area, massive land area of up to 1700 houses was going to be completely removed from the landscape,” she told RNZ.
Dunedin city councillor Jo Galer was blunt about the way the news was delivered. She said it was unfair to let residents walk into a briefing and discover their homes were in the firing line with no warning. “I think that’s downright cruel that they should come away from that meeting distressed, upset and unable to contemplate what their future might look like,” she said.
Jonathan Rowe has tried to reassure homeowners that the programme is not about clearing people out wholesale. He said the councils would only need to buy property where it was required to build something for the wider community, such as a pump station or a water detention basin, and that purchases would favour people who wanted to sell. Even so, the prospect of losing a family home to a long term climate plan has unsettled a community that already lives with regular surface flooding.
The frustration is sharpest among those already dealing with water in their lives. Mike Hammond, who chairs a local community network, said people who had been coping with sewage backing up into their yards were never going to receive the news calmly. “Well, if you’re talking to people who are getting like sewage in their backyards, you can imagine they’re not, you know, happy to have that fertilised in their gardens,” he said.
The disruption may reach beyond private homes. Officials have indicated that Bayfield High School could need to be relocated depending on the design of coastal walls planned for the Andersons Bay Inlet, adding a major public institution to the list of buildings that might have to move.
South Dunedin sits barely above sea level on reclaimed swamp and dune, which is why it has long been one of the most flood prone urban areas in the country. The Otago Regional Council says the work shows flood risk can be cut to levels comparable to or even lower than today, but only with sustained effort over many decades, major investment and real change for the people who live there. In its statement, the council framed the moment as one of difficult choices rather than easy answers.
The decisions now move into the open. The two councils are considering the work this week, on 24 and 25 June, and are expected to decide whether to put the options to the public. If they agree, formal community engagement will run from 1 July to 9 August, with drop in sessions, workshops and an online survey. The councils say no option will be locked in until residents have had their say, and final decisions will follow that feedback and further technical work.
For a suburb of about 13,000 people, the next few weeks will shape conversations that stretch a century into the future. What do you think South Dunedin should do, and how should councils talk to homeowners whose properties are on the line? 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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