Flood Protection Management Bylaw

Otago Regional Council provides flood protection and land drainage across around 43,000ha of rural and urban land in Otago.

The Flood Protection Management Bylaw is the regulation that safeguards flood protection and land drainage assets owned or managed by ORC.

We are currently drafting this Bylaw. The Flood Protection Management Bylaw 2022 came into effect on 1 September 2022.

Jump to:

What is the Flood Protection Management Bylaw?
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Areas covered by the bylaw
View/download bylaw maps
Contact us

 

 

What is the Flood Protection Management Bylaw?

The Flood Protection Management Bylaw:

• identifies important assets owned and managed by ORC, including scheduled drains and overland flow paths, floodbanks, floodways, groynes, crossbanks and flood protection vegetation.
• protects them by outlining activities that people cannot carry out in, on, under, or near those assets without the authority of ORC.
• outlines when people need to talk with Regional Council and if necessary, apply for a Bylaw Authority, essentially ‘written permission’ to do works near these regionally significant assets. Bylaw Authorities are assessed and granted in a similar way to resource consent applications.
• identifies things landowners need to do, such as keeping structures in good repair, and fences and gates in floodways are kept free of debris
• allows Council to require that drains are fenced to keep livestock out of waterways and access to and from assets is controlled if needed.

Several activities are restricted, including altering the assets, carrying out earthworks, planting or removing trees, placing structures where they may reduce their effectiveness, and allowing livestock to damage assets amongst others. The Bylaw may affect a number of people, especially those who live near one of our assets.

 

About the bylaw

The Bylaw applies to structures owned or managed by Otago Regional Council on both public and private land.

These include but are not limited to:

• Scheduled drains 
• Overland flow paths 
• Defences against water (e.g. rock buttresses and floodbanks) 
• Floodways 
• Groynes 
• Cross-banks 
• Training lines 
• Flood protection vegetation. 

These structures help protect people, property, and livelihoods from experiencing the full effect of flood events.

More about our flood protection measures

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

 

Areas covered by the bylaw

The areas that the bylaw applies to are:

• Lower Clutha
• Tokomairiro
• Lower, East and West Taieri
• Leith Lindsay
• Hilderthorpe
• Waitaki
• Alexandra

 

 

Flood Protection Bylaw maps

Search an address and see if it is affected by the bylaw. 

If you prefer to view the map in its own browser window/tab, you can do so here.

 

First Schedule - Scheduled Drains and Overland Flow Paths

• Lower Clutha
• Tokomairiro
• East Taieri
• West Taieri

 

Second Schedule - Defences against water and evacuation sensitive areas

• Lower Clutha
• Lower Taieri
• Lower Taieri Sheet 1 (Outram area)
• Lower Taieri Sheet 2 (Mosgiel area)
• Lower Taieri Sheet 3 (Dunedin Airport area)
• Lower Taieri Sheet 4 (Momona and Allanton area)
• Lower Taieri Sheet 5 (Berwick area)
• Lower Taieri Sheet 6 (Otokia area)
• Lower Taieri Sheet 7 (Henley area)
• Leith Lindsay
• Alexandra
• Albert Town

 

Third Schedule - Floodways

• Lower Clutha
• Lower Taieri (Upper Pond)
• East Taieri Silver Stream
• Lower Taieri River Floodway Overview
• Lower Taieri Sheet 1 (Allanton and Dunedin Airport area)
• Lower Taieri Sheet 2 (Otokia area)
• Lower Taieri Sheet 3 (Henley area)
• Miller Road
• Otokia Road
• Hendersons and Waikoura Creeks
• Hilderthorpe

 

Fourth Schedule - Groynes, Cross-banks, training line and Flood Protection Vegetation Boundary

• Lower Waitaki Overview
• Lower Waitaki Sheet 1 (Waitaki township area)
• Lower Waitaki Sheet 2 (McPherson Road area)
• Lower Waitaki Sheet 3 (Gibsons Road area)
• Lower Waitaki Sheet 4 (Wilson Road area)
• Shotover area

 

Contact us

For further enquiries email bylaws@orc.govt.nz or phone: 0800 474 082