Masterton Community Assets Could Be Impacted By Flood Protection Work

Tuesday, 18 March 2025, 8:38 pm
Article: Emily Ireland - Local Democracy Reporter

Masterton District Council is seeking more clarity on how its community assets, including a holiday park and sports fields, could be impacted under four regional council flood protection concepts.

One of the four options the regional council recently consulted on was to retreat stop banks on the northern side of the Waipoua River to give the river more room during a major flood.

This option could put Mawley Holiday Park, the Colin Pugh Sports Bowl, and sports fields at risk of flooding in a large weather event.

In a draft submission on behalf of the council, Masterton mayor Gary Caffell said if any of these community assets needed to be “abandoned due to intolerable risk to life, this should be clearly communicated with the community”.

“We seek further information to better understand the associated risk to life that this concept presents, and what that would mean for the future of these community assets.

“Understanding how flooding is likely to act, and if there will be plenty of warning in a flood event will help determine the future use of the assets.”

The protection work would minimise the possible impacts of flooding from the Waipoua River to Masterton’s township and industrial areas.

In the submission, Caffell said all four concepts the regional council had consulted on would impact Masterton District Council’s [MDC] community assets to some extent.

“While we understand there is a need to protect the town and private property, the solution should not be at the expense of community assets,” he said.

“The Masterton community have already funded the purchase and maintenance of MDC assets and committed to future investment via the Long-Term Plan.”

He said where MDC assets were impacted through the flood protection work, Greater Wellington Regional Council [GWRC] should “ensure sufficient funding is allocated to remedy the situation”.

“This cost should not fall on MDC.”

He said an example of remediation that could be required included relocating MDC assets.

The four concepts for managing the flood risk to Masterton included improving and extending stop banks in existing locations, increasing channel capacity through extensive work in the channel, retreating some stop banks and implementing nature-based solutions in the upper catchment.

The final design would likely involve a combination of aspects from each of the four concepts.

It was hoped the work would safeguard against the devastation of a Cyclone Gabrielle-sized event.

High level estimates suggested that the cost to implement these concepts would be similar and were in the order of $30 million.

Based on the current rating classification, this equated to an average total rate increase of $10 per $100,000 CV for local Masterton ratepayers.

For a property with a value of $540,000, this would be an additional $54 per year.

For regional ratepayers outside of the Masterton area, the rates increase would be less than $0.50 per $100,000 CV.

On behalf of the council, Caffell also asked for an ecological assessment to determine the impact on the health of the river and its surrounds, a cost benefit analysis to understand the benefits, opportunities and drawbacks of each concept, and an assessment of the change in insurability of properties that were currently potentially flood affected.

Masterton District Council would meet on Wednesday to approve the submission.

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