Nelson City Council elected members agreed in principle yesterday, 14 September 2023, to a cost-sharing package with central government to support the city’s recovery from the severe weather event in August 2022.

The agreement in principle is subject to an officer’s report outlining the implications and future cost to Council, which will be considered before a final decision is made on the package at its next scheduled Council meeting on 19 October 2023.

Central government has offered up to $12.3 million in a package of recovery measures including up to $6 million as a 50% contribution to support the buyout of up to 14 properties where the landslide risk is too high for those property owners to return to their homes and the cost to mitigate is prohibitive.

Other commitments in the central government offer are:

• Up to $6 million for the betterment of slips on Council-owned land that are affecting residential properties;
• A lump sum of $300,000 to monitor the Tāhunanui Slump, which will cover a period of 10 years at $30,000 per annum;
• A commitment that an accommodation allowance will be available to families experiencing acute financial hardship because they are paying a mortgage on a home they cannot live in and their insurance-funded support to cover the cost of a rental property has run out.

“The properties severely affected by landslides pose a difficult problem because the cost of making them safe exceeds their value,” says Nelson Mayor Nick Smith. “The affected families are in an impossible position and cannot move forward with their lives and we risk the areas being left derelict for years. This 50/50 cost-sharing agreement between Council and government offers a pragmatic solution.

“This is a good, fair deal that enables us to take another step on the road to recovery. My objectives for Nelson’s storm recovery work are that we fix and resolve the damage as quickly as possible, that we ensure greater resilience to future events, and that we manage the costs to ratepayers by maximising the support from Government. This package helps achieve all three.”

© Scoop Media