Councillors yesterday discussed two engineering consultancy assessments of natural hazards in the Glenorchy area, about 50km from the Alpine Fault, as work moved into a new phase of "what can we do about it?"
Glenorchy Community Association chairman John Glover, speaking in a personal capacity at yesterday’s ORC safety and resilience committee, was concerned councillors were being presented a report that assessed the viability, or futility, of maintaining Kinloch Rd without any work done on its value to the community.
Mr Glover noted during the public forum the council was "charging ahead" looking into what it could do in the area when it had not fully considered "what matters most", by completing a social and economic impact assessment.
"It really worries me that the quantification of social impact and the economic impact seems to be less important than the need to state that rocks are expensive, whatever that means.
"It also worries me — quite frankly depresses me — that the ORC chooses to send out a media release about Glenorchy with images of red zones, collapsed houses and cars sinking into the ground whilst pointing out that the best options are impractical and unaffordable and the cheapest may not meet consent requirements.
"I’m not sure that’s how you take a community on a collaborative journey with you."
After the meeting, Mr Glover said there had been a lot of community engagement by the council but things like a risk assessment seemed to be a low priority.
"It’s a piece of the jigsaw that is still missing and we keep on reminding the scientists and the engineers — who clearly love to work in that space of ground engineering and concrete — that there’s more to it than that.
"And we need some information to balance those [engineering solutions] against."
Council operations general manger Dr Gavin Palmer said the council was tasked with identifying natural hazards.
"There is still much to be discussed with communities with regards to risk mitigation," Dr Palmer said.
"ORC does not take its responsibilities lightly, and its goal was to communicate the reports to the community, and keep the dialogue going.
"Community meetings are planned where people can voice their views on these reports.
Along with flooding risks faced by the town, a Tonkin + Taylor report said engineering solutions aimed at addressing the liquefaction risk for Glenorchy could cost "into the hundreds of millions of dollars" and still not prevent severe damage to parts of the town.
A council media release before the meeting referred to "sand volcanoes" during an earthquake causing cracks in the land into which cars could fall.
Cr Michael Laws said he felt "very sorry" for people who lived in Glenorchy.
"I don’t think in all my time at the Otago Regional Council I’ve ever been so depressed by a report in my life," Cr Laws said.
Cr Alexa Forbes said the forthcoming social and economic impact assessment was crucial.
"This is really, really big news and really hard for a community to take, and this is a really important piece of work.
"We just can’t say things are affordable or unaffordable until we know the impact of them.
"I understand that it’s really hard to do all these things at once ... but I think that community is feeling pretty singled out."
Dr Palmer said the council was doing the work it could do now.
"Actions for how the big issues are dealt with will actually come out of the [planned] adaptation strategy," he said.
"And that’s going to require engagement with those other organisations to come up with a mutually agreeable action plan for whatever those things look like."
