Isn’t the climate ignorance of Waka Kotahi the most terrifying part of this?

ByMartyn Bradbury

Ummmm.

What?

Auckland Council in talks to move some roads after floods=

The Government had committed $6 billion over four years to resilience projects, starting with the likes of a new drainage system on State Highway 1 near Auckland’s Epsom.

The road was flooded and could not be driven on during the Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods, and was a long-standing risk identified by Waka Kotahi.

But until recently, the transport agency did not factor climate change and resilience into its projects.

WHAT?

Waka Kotahi DID NOT FACTOR CLIMATE CHANGE AND RESILIENCE INTO ITS PROJECTS???

This level of climate change ignorance is as bad as bloody Kaianga Ora!

Concerns many Kāinga Ora homes are built on flood-prone land

More than 10,000 properties owned by the Government’s state housing agency are on flood-prone land and it has plans to build more.

You would think that building State Houses on flood plains was a recipe for disaster, especially when it turns out that the barest minimum requirements are what Kaianga Ora have used…

“Developing in a flood prone area is not a problem per se, in fact what it does is it allows us to design to make sure we mitigate for the flooding impact,” says Kāinga Ora’s general manager of urban development and delivery Mark Fraser.

Māngere housing advocate Jo Latif says some of the houses were lifted off their foundations while families were still inside trying to escape.

Latif is part of a group advocating for Māngere’s state housing residents.

“I’ve heard from Kāinga Ora that they have done the minimum council requirements for their new houses and frankly, you know, in Māngere, we are sick of the bare minimum.”

…is Kaianga Ora Māori for ‘Drowning Tenants’ and Waka Kotahi Māori for sinking canoe is it?

Does it fill anyone else with terror that the State Housing Agency is building on floodplains?

Does it fill anyone else with dread that they are putting in the lowest effort required for events that are extreme?

This is the agency who were throwing tenants out onto the street for flawed meth tests, is their, ‘trust us’ really good enough?

Here’s the kicker…

Fraser says Kāinga Ora has been making sure that any decisions it’s made on housing since the middle of last year, with any business case for housing, includes climate resilience.

…fuck me backwards!

Are they telling us, ‘no worries, since last year we’ve been all about climate resilience’????

SINCE LAST YEAR?

WTF?

Waka Kotahi and Kaianga Ora have only just heard about climate change have they?

So from last year climate resilience has been added to their decision making for state housing and roading?

So everything before 2022 hasn’t been built with climate resilience?

Sweet Jesus this has all the ingredients of a cluster fuck beyond their flawed meth testing cluster fuck.

We will see far more flooding and you can already hear Waka Kotahi and Kaianga Ora Executives mouthing their excuses.

There is never any accountability in this country thanks to underfunded public services that stopped giving a fuck decades ago.

 

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13 Comments

  1. Calm yourself Martyn. The real priorities are already under way:
    Bilingual road signs.
    I’d have fired everybody in Waka Kotahi a long time ago and restarted with some enthusiastic mentally impaired chimpanzees.
    We’d be miles ahead.

  2. So much of this goes to the heart of a government that is based on polling and whose planning is inversion, that is to respond to headlines on front pages.

    Ngongataha. A parcel of Rotorua land that was rejected by Minister of Housing Megan Woods for 80 houses in 2018 due to flood risk concerns has been acquired by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development with plans to build affordable housing.

    The site for the planned home development in 31 Ngongotaha Rd was also declined as a possible cemetery in 2004 due to the presence of “sewage sludge.”.

    You see, Labour Green set Rotorua up as a homeless dumping ground, in panicked response to a lack of planning for the housing catastrophe. The social problems this policy predictably brought with it created this next headless chicken response that will end in disaster.

    Waka Kotahe can’t fix pot holes, they can’t complete projects at all on time or to budget leaving far safer roads like the new SH1 highway at Puhoi shut, whilst motorists take the far more lethal flood prone old road. And ironically close the Auckland Harbour Bridge so frequently nowadays at the drop of a hat, more as a response to Labour’s ill thought out postage stamp designed road to zero policy, to keep everything and everyone “safe”, they stop life saving emergency response vehicles in their tracks. But man oh man, they are Tiriti aware! Both organisations are.

    That neither organisation can do the core objectives we thought they existed for should not surprise. They’ve been Wellingtoned and Laboured!

    1. Just shear stupidity IMHO, they should discuss with local Te Tangata Whenua.

  3. People need to admit what has long been obvious: It’s now a nation of cowboys, where standards are in the gutter and future expectations are even lower.

    Everything is cheap, nasty, ugly and probably broken (for the benefit of some huge company).

    Of course, the opposite used to be true. ‘Britain of the South’ had a modern industrialised economy that could deliver world-leading living standards, because people actually demanded such things from the politicians (and were willing to fight).

  4. There are certainly dummies at the helm leading those decisions. Go figure?

  6. Do not worry Waka Kotahi have now signs in Maori saying take care pothole ahead.

  7. Just shear stupidity IMHO, they should discuss with local Te Tangata Whenua.

  8. We won’t be needing roads anyway. We are all supposed to be on electric fast trains, and walking everywhere.

  9. New reality TV show, dumb meets dumber. Seriously where do they find these people????????????? Still more houses going in, while now residents apparently actually take camper vans to avoid traffic and there is no understanding between more homes in areas that already have traffic problems! I guess if they can’t work that out, then climate change is off the table – why plan when you can do less than nothing by actually making NZ roads worse!

    Then there is a lack of basic ability such as how many times do they have to dig up the roads and get it wrong, they can’t even seal roads properly anymore! The roading subcontractors are as incompetent as Waka Kotahi, as nobody seems to have any accountability anymore as billions of money is literally wasted on roads that are getting more dysfunctional by the week and now actually wrecking the cars themselves as well as causing congestion.

    The more te reo they put in, the worst it seems to get – I think it’s a way to distract from the appalling job they are doing, while also making the roads more dangerous as only 7.5% of people in NZ currently speak te reo reasonably well – so clearly madness to use Te reo on safety signs!!!!

    Every week tourists get in cars and have accidents on NZ roads, having te reo on the roads signs, is only going to make it worse – thus now disabling people and putting them in NZ hospitals. All so that woke who can build houses or roads, can virtue signal. Who needs safety and results when ideology is more important.

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