Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Bruce Weir: Saddleback Planning and Urban Design Designer on the call for the RMA replacement to stop people building in "dumb places"

Transcript

Bruce Weir: Saddleback Planning and Urban Design Designer on the call for the RMA replacement to stop people building in "dumb places" · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Insurers want to make sure the government's replacement for the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: RIMA ensures that we don't build in what they call
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: dumb places, places that are earthquake prone or flood prone.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: The government's replacing the RMA with two pieces of legislation.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: The Insurance Council says we're particularly vulnerable to natural hazard risks.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: They reckon that around seven hundred and fifty thousand people
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: and four hundred and sixty one thousand buildings are at
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: risk of coastal inundational and land flooding. Bruce Where is
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a urban designer at Saddleback Planning and Urban Design, is
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: with us this morning. Bruce, Good morning Mourning. Ryan, Good
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to have you on the show. Do people want? Do
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: people want to build in high risk flood zones?
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: It's one of those funny ironies in New Zealand, isn't it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Everywhere we want to live is played with a few issues,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: and coastal inundation is one of them. The high value areas,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: so all of our waterfronts close, crook edges, edges of
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: water always just it's a human condition to some extent,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: But haven't said that we also build on good flat
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: land that's prone to flooding and we all know it.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: It's just what it is.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Should we be allowed to or do we have a choice.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, we just basically be living in apartments if
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: we no.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Look, I think what it is is that. Look, it
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: comes down to cost. There's risks with everything, absolutely everything
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: you know over the and flows, and it's up to
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: you to do your due diligence on a size and
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: understand the costs of you know, most of the heavy
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: lifting is done at the front end of a project.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: When you do land development. It's not when you can
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: strike the house. You can set minimum floor levels, those
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: sorts of things for houses, and that will provide you
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: pretty good mitigation. Most of the heavy lifting has done
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: with the land of ours when they're identifying, you know,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the prime areas to locate. And I understand their insurance
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: councils concerned, no two ways about it.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Well, they don't want to.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Be lead, but they have a lot of clouts.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Well they do, and they don't want to be I mean,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: they're obviously just a warning saying we're not going to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: be able to cover these guys if they keep building
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: in high risk areas. Do you think we should change
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the rule I mean, should the public, should a council,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: should the government ever have to bail out or help
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: out if a person knowingly builds in a high risk area.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Well, the way I see it is so we're trying
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: to decide between having acc essentially and private property or
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: making people personally responsible for the decisions they take. And
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: you know, like I think the problem is, you can
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: put the information out there and people still make dumb decisions.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: And if we allow people to do that and there's
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: no consequence, then then we're going to keep on getting
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: dumb decisions. Is a level of pain factor and people,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: you know, look, if you drive drunk, you lose your license, right,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you know what's coming. You're not insured, your car's uninsured.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: You're going to get hammered both ways. And so you know,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: why is it any different for property? Why do we
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: somehow we have to bail everybody out when they do
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: knowingly stupid things. It's people lie, it's fraud, it's a crime.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Tell you, I forget that Bible saying that the man
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: who built his house on the rock and the sand,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and I forget how it goes, But it's that kind
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of story. Bruce, Thank you very much, for that Bruce
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: where urban designer at Saddleback Planning and Urban Design talking
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: there about the insurance industry which is saying stop building
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and dumb places and wants the government to basically legislate that.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Simon Court is the ACTMP and he's the Undersecretary responsible
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: for RMA. We'll ask him about that.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: For more from News Talk st B. Listen live on
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: air or online, and
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Keep our shows with you wherever you go with our
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: podcasts on iHeartRadio