City and regional councillors are set to discuss a draft four-year programme plan to help the South Dunedin area adapt to climate change. The plan has been jointly developed by the Dunedin City Council (DCC) and Otago Regional Council (ORC) as part of the South Dunedin Future programme.

The plan has been released in the agenda papers for this week’s DCC Planning and Environment Committee meeting. The same report will also be considered at a meeting of the ORC’s Strategy and Planning Committee next week.

Parts of the low-lying flat area of South Dunedin are likely to become more flood prone over coming decades due to climate change. Scientists anticipate rising sea levels, rising ground water, and increased frequency and severity of rainfall events.

The plan lays out a process through to 2026 by which the councils and the community can navigate the complex social, environmental, economic and political issues required to determine the area’s future. The plan does not provide answers, rather it outlines the key questions that need to be asked and describes how we will progressively work through the issues.

The overall aim is to develop a comprehensive climate change adaptation strategy for South Dunedin, and to do this in a way that is robust, transparent, and inclusive. Central to this will be community engagement, where councils will work closely with mana whenua partners, affected communities, and other stakeholders to identify a way forward.

The community will have a range of opportunities to consider the issues, understand the options and trade-offs, hear what others think and want, and play an active role in the decision-making. In this way, everyone should have an opportunity to help shape South Dunedin’s future.

The main steps are shown in Figure 5 on page 29 in the Programme Plan. There are five main phases, following the Government’s recommended climate change adaptation approach called Dynamic Adaptive Planning Pathways (DAPP).

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