Council to keep 'susceptible to coastal hazards' on Christchurch LIMS, despite advice

Coastal hazard information will stay on 18,000 Christchurch LIMs, but they will not stipulate whether the risk is from coastal erosion or inundation.

The Christchurch City Council is changing controversial coastal flooding and erosion information on thousands of property records. The council announced on Monday it would alter 18,000 Land Information Memorandum (LIM) reports after a panel of scientific experts said last month coastal hazard information should be removed. The experts said maps used to identify at risk properties could be "legally unsound" and should be put to one side until new ones were completed. Council chief executive Karleen Edwards said one notation would replace the four earlier notations. It would refer to a risk from coastal hazards, without being as specific about the extent of the risk. It would not stipulate whether the risk came from coastal erosion or inundation. "It will be made clear in the LIM notation that further work around coastal hazards is being done and that LIM notations may change in the future as a result." The first sentence of the new notation says: "The council has a report (Coastal Hazard Assessment Stage Two Report 2015) that indicates this property or part of this property may be susceptible to coastal hazards." The notation says a peer review of the report identified some issues and made recommendations for further council work. It said the council was carrying out that work and the coastal hazard information for that property could change in the future. LIM reports were changed last year to reflect the potential risk of flooding or erosion as identified in the controversial Tonkin & Taylor report. The Christchurch Coastal Residents United (CCRU) has fought to get the information taken off LIM reports since. The report, released in July 2015, identified 6000 Christchurch properties that could be susceptible to erosion and nearly 18,000 at risk of coastal inundation over the next 50 to 100 years. Residents questioned the science behind the report. They were concerned the LIM notations would affect property values and future insurance coverage. The council decided in December to subject the report to a second peer review by a panel of scientific experts, which found problems with aspects of the report. CCRU spokesman Darrell Latham said the group was obtaining a legal interpretation of the notation before deciding its next step. The group previously threatened legal action if the information was not deleted from LIMs. Edwards said the council was legally obliged to put on LIMs information it held about any special features of the land, including potential natural hazards that might affect the land.

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