A report on Moeraki stormwater presented to Waitaki district councillors yesterday could not have come soon enough, Mayor Gary Kircher says.
At a Waitaki District Council meeting yesterday, councillors approved a budget of $150,000 to undertake work related to the Moeraki stormwater outfall improvement project, to address instability issues in the Haven St area.
The report was scheduled to be presented to councillors yesterday, and the day before the meeting, Moeraki’s Haven St was closed due to a slip.
"Obviously the agenda item was already on the table to be discussed, then we’ve had the whole situation exacerbated by some of the subsidence in the road itself," Mr Kircher said.
"This report isn’t a day too soon."
The Waitaki District Council has been seeking solutions to Haven St’s instability issues for several years.
It had been "universally agreed" that the ground movements within the Moeraki area were compounded by stormwater management and runoff, a report presented to the Waihemo Community Board last month said.
"How this stormwater runoff is directed and managed is seen as a key action to limiting subsidence," the report said.
In 2010, the Waitaki District Council sought resource consent from the Otago Regional Council (ORC) to enable drainage works to reduce the rate of ground movement in the Haven St area.
Before the work was completed, significant rain in 2013 resulted in a section of Haven St collapsing, requiring changes to the proposed works.
Some components of the 2010 consented work were covered when the community undertook the rebuild project in 2015, but further complications timeframes to complete the work were exceeded.
When the ORC undertook a scheduled consent compliance audit of the community-led project, the incomplete state of the stormwater outfalls was noted.
The ORC issued a significant non-compliance notice to the council, which required remedial work and a retrospective consent application.
Retrospective resource consents were granted in May this year.
Mr Kircher said there was no indication when Haven St would reopen following this week’s slip, and the council’s priority was maintaining access to properties in Haven St.
"That’s a priority over having two roads to actually get in and out of the village," he said.
Some residents he had spoken to had told him they would like the street to be closed to through-traffic long-term.
"Part of the problem is, there’s a lot of traffic going through there larger than should be, and faster than should be, and that’s not helping the situation at all," he said.
"We do need to consider, I think, whether it is actually closed to through-traffic in the longer term."
A lot of time, effort and money had gone into providing an alternate route into Moeraki, which followed much more stable land than the Haven St route, and there were more discussions needed with the community about the future of Haven St, Mr Kircher said.
The $150,000 stormwater outfall improvement project was to be funded from the Moeraki Amenity Fund ($40,000), Waihemo Township Works Fund ($60,000) and a loan from the Moeraki amenity rate ($50,000). At yesterday’s meeting, Mr Kircher sought support for an amendment to change the $50,000 loan from the Moeraki amenity rate to a district-wide loan.
"Normally work around stormwater was treated as a local amenity issue, but the nature of the village is there’s not a lot of permanent people there — there’s a lot of visitors," he said.
"The ability to have some of the cost spread across the district means that it’s not all falling on that small community."
