LIM Reports Must Link To Regional Council Sea Flooding Maps

The LIM Report is the best and most up to date way to communicate natural hazards information and the potential risk associated with the purchase of a property. 

The Waikato Regional Council has produced a very useful online “inundation tool” which shows potential sea level rise flooding risk to coastal properties.  Using a Google Map type interface you can zoom in on a property or suburb and look at the effects of various levels of sea level rise.  

At the moment LIM Reports produced by Thames Coromandel District Council make no reference to this vital information.  This wrong and is almost certainly illegal.

Council is required to supply known natural hazard information whether they are in possession of that information or not.

Information that is ‘known’ to council simply means that the council needs to know about the information relating to a special feature or characteristic, but it does not have to believe the information is accurate or even probably accurate.

The purpose of the LIM is not to warrant the land is good or safe, but rather to put the recipient on notice of the particular facts that might affect the physical state and potentially the value of the land.

The LIM is considered to be council’s biggest exposure to legal liability, making it vitally important for councils to get it right.

I have spoken to Council at its Public Form and submitted that –

the Council must provide an accurate summary of the type of information available from the WRC website and provide a working link so that LIM recipients can investigate for themselves potential sea level rise and coastal flooding implications.

In my opinion, a failure to do so could expose the Council to legal liability. 

If the Council fails to include this information in LIMs and then gets sued by someone – then we all end up paying for that folly through our rates.  Hopefully, the Council will see sense.

There is a very good article on LIMs and natural hazards here