Dunedin Mayor Sophie Barker said she was "very unhappy" with an Otago Regional Council (ORC) decision last week which affected the Dunedin City Council’s approach to consultation on long-term flood risk mitigations for the area.
"While we are having discussions around amalgamation, this points to a serious concern that an Otago-wide council made up of Otago-wide councillors can have huge impacts on Dunedin and our ability to make sensible local decisions for our community," Ms Barker said.
At a meeting on Wednesday, the ORC decided an engineered flood protection system should be designed and released for public feedback alongside the status quo and three shortlisted options developed through the councils’ joint South Dunedin Future programme.
The following day, city councillors approved a motion "reluctantly" introduced by Ms Barker, incorporating the regional council’s decision by adding a "pipes and pumps" adaptation option to consultation and noting an associated four-month delay.
"This extra work to create and price another option, which has already been consulted on, plus the delays has added costs and complexity to our work programmes," Ms Barker said yesterday.
It was clear "pipes and pumps" were incorporated into each of the three shortlisted options initially proposed, she said.
"Also, it appears the ORC did not ask the question about what would be the impact of them adding another option, which is likely to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for our council."
A joint committee to assist decision-making could be discussed by city councillors.
"Our local council is intimately involved with Dunedin, knows our community and appreciates the impacts decisions make on our budgets and resources."
Regional council chairwoman Hilary Calvert said the option of a joint overseeing group held appeal for some regional councillors — she found the programme’s current arrangement "clunky".
"In the alternative, the DCC could take charge and responsibility for the project, with any help the ORC can provide from time to time as required."
Cr Calvert said she was canvassing a proposal for both councils to be briefed on the programme together.
Seven adaptation options were narrowed and adjusted to a shortlist of three, priced from $1.63 billion to $2.45b over 100 years.
The shortlisted options proposed purchase and demolition of between 1100 and 1700 houses, making way for public works such as canals.
At Thursday’s meeting, city council chief executive Sandy Graham said its decision needed to account for the ORC’s position, as the two organisations were jointly delivering the programme.
"Pipes and pumps" was a longlisted option not progressed in September last year.
Ms Graham said there would be "at least four months of additional work required" to bring its level of detail in line with the other shortlisted options.
"Then we will develop consultation material on that basis and bring that back to council for them to consider to approve it."
There had not been time to assess the delay’s impact on the city council’s long-term plan process, although it was likely budget discussions would be moved from December to January, Ms Graham said.
"Had council moved something that didn’t take account of the ORC position, we would then have had to pause consultation anyway and try and navigate any ambiguity between the two positions.
"[Ms Barker’s] resolution is an attempt to navigate the position of the two councils and still enable the work programme to be progressed, albeit delayed slightly."
South Dunedin Future programme manager Jonathan Rowe said it had not been possible to determine the likely implication of regional councillors’ decision, including costs, during their meeting.
"They’ve only been been determined following some consultation amongst the team and initial consultation with the consultants."
