Kumeū has a long history of flooding, most recently in the three significant storm events in 2021 and 2023 where numerous homes and businesses were flooded.
These events increased the urgency to find ways to reduce the flooding in Kumeū and Huapai and to understand how much each option would cost and how much risk they would reduce.
The Kumeū and Huapai catchment is over 6,000 hectares with a large portion of the township located in the floodplain which makes reducing flood risk challenging.
Auckland Council has been thoroughly investigating different options to try to find a way to reduce the flooding in Kumeū and Huapai.
Results of the investigation
Auckland Council’s Healthy Waters and Flood Resilience department investigated, with urgency, to see if there was an infrastructure solution to reduce flooding impacts for the community.
Several options were investigated including extending the existing floodway, diversion of the Kumeū river and building a detention pond.
However, it was found that these interventions would not be able to drop the flood water level enough, and do not reduce the flood risk for enough properties to make the possible solutions feasible.
“In the meantime, we are clearing the stream more often to help water flow better during smaller storms. We are also testing new tools including a river level alert system that will be piloted with community involvement in the coming months,” says Nicholas Vigar, Auckland Council Head of Network Planning (Healthy Waters).
The Auckland Unitary Plan
“As we have become more aware of how flooding will affect areas of Auckland, we have been bringing in interventions to help reduce the impacts,” says John Duguid, Auckland Council General Manager, Planning and Resource Consents.
“In 2016, we built interventions into the Auckland Unitary Plan, so anyone applying to build in an area at risk of flooding needs to prove that the risks will be avoided or managed well enough to not impact people or property. This means any properties built since then will be more resilient to flooding and will not increase the flood risk to neighbouring properties.
“In response to the floods in 2023, we are now looking to strengthen these rules even further. This relies on a change to the law – specifically the Resource Management Act - that the government is looking to make that will enable the council to strengthen the rules it has to manage building in areas with a flood risk,” he says.
Under the Town Centre Plan for Kumeū-Huapai it was proposed to expand the existing town centre – as long as there was a viable flood management solution. As the Healthy Waters investigation work could not identify a viable solution, this expansion is no longer supported.
Next steps
There is land that would be suitable for housing and another centre to the west of Kumeū-Huapai town centre. However, this area needs to be supported by significant transport, water and community infrastructure first, so it is a long-term plan that is unlikely to see any development in this area for at least 25 years.
In the meantime, the council will continue to work to find the best long-term solutions for Kumeū-Huapai.
