Higher floors needed for Dunedin flood risk

5:53 pm on 11 May 2017

New homes in South Dunedin will have to be built up to a metre higher above the ground because of the area's 2015 flood.

A car powers through floodwaters in south Dunedin on Thursday.

A car powers through floodwaters in South Dunedin in June 2015. Photo: RNZ / Ian Telfer

The Dunedin City Council has announced the floors of all new homes built in flood-prone areas must be at least 40cm higher than where the floodwaters reached.

The new measure is expected to affect about a dozen properties a year.

About 1250 properties were damaged in South Dunedin, Kaikorai Valley and the Taieri Plain by the flooding in June 2015.

The change takes effect from today, and cover all new residential buildings and extensions including larger communal buildings like resthomes and childcare centres.

South Dunedin is most affected, but it will also cover low-lying areas on the Taieri Plain, Brighton, Tomahawk and parts of Kaikorai Valley.

The decision should only affect about 12 new houses a year but over time it would change the height of the city's lowest areas, the council said.

Four building consent applications already lodged would also be affected, it said.

The general manager of community services, Simon Pickford, said the most extreme cases it would mean building up to a metre higher, but most should not have to be lifted that much.

The minimum floor height for areas outside the flood zones would have to be at least half a metre above the ground level.

The council acknowledged the changes could add thousands of dollars to building a new home.

It said it was not trying to make development difficult, but be responsible and respond to community concerns.

"When people make an investment in a home... it's perhaps the most significant investment you going to make," Mr Pickford said.

The council was trying to provide some surety for that investment, so that the house would be safe in a one-in-50-year flood event, he said.

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