A report prepared for the council’s safety and resilience committee, meeting in Dunedin tomorrow, details the next steps the council will take in formulating its adaptation strategy for the area centred on Glenorchy.
The draft strategy, expected by June next year, will detail measures to mitigate the risk to communities and infrastructure from flooding and earthquake damage.
Residents and community leaders had criticised earlier council reports on the programme for overlooking the social impacts of hazards and their mitigation, which could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
In May, Glenorchy Community Association chairman John Glover said the council had not fully considered "what matters most", by completing a social and economic impact assessment.
Earlier this week, the Otago Daily Times published details of a council tender document, which said work would be required to identify potential social and economic impacts faced by the community.
Thursday’s committee report confirms this, saying the current focus of the programme is "What matters most?" and "What can we do about it?"
"The next stages of the ... cycle (to June 2024) have three main themes to explore with the community and partners through community engagement activities: views, values and aspirations for the future; adaptation pathways and desired outcomes; and feedback on design and implementation of first iteration of an adaptation strategy."
The report said information provided in a May update on the programme, which identified risks of flooding and liquefaction for the area as "significant", would be used as a foundation for a more detailed risk assessment.
This would help inform the community of the "relative levels of natural hazard risk in the township", as requested during earlier community liaison sessions.
It would also include justifications for adaptation or risk management activities, including potential use of land-use planning controls.
"This [will] provide a robust evidence base for any future land-use decision-making, such as if avoidance or relocation approaches may be appropriate for higher-risk areas."
The report said some measures were already in place in response to the earlier report.
These included ensuring staff were aware of the liquefaction risk, to take into account for resource consent applications; and making liquefaction hazard data available to Queenstown Lakes District Council and the public.
