With the first phase of the Pōrangahau Flood Resilience Project now well into construction, the 75 properties met the test for the Category 2C label to come off.
Regional Council staff hand-delivered letters advising property owners of the change last Thursday.
HBRC chairwoman Sophie Siers said the decision gave the Pōrangahau community a clearer path forward.
“This is so much more than just a technical change.
“For the people who have been living with Category 2C beside their address, it is a letter that says the ground is firmer now, and you can plan for a future here in Pōrangahau.”
She said Cyclone Gabrielle took many things from Hawke’s Bay, including lives, homes, land, infrastructure, and livelihoods.
“It also took something less visible: people’s sense of safety. That unconscious trust in the world around you.
“This decision helps give some of that back.”
Siers said the decision should not be mistaken for a promise that the river will never flood again.
“No flood scheme can remove every risk.
“But for these properties, the risk has been reduced to a level where the Category 2C label is no longer needed and stronger protection is now being put in place.”
For HBRC councillor Thompson Hokianga, the decision lands close to home.
He grew up in Pōrangahau and has enduring whakapapa ties to the whenua and to Rongomaraeroa Marae.
“Pōrangahau is a place that raised me, a landscape I know intimately, and a community I am accountable to, not only as an elected councillor but through whakapapa.”
He said after the cyclone, there was the visible damage you could see, the silt, the water marks, the ruined fences, the mess.
“Beneath that was the worry about what it would mean for homes, for whenua, and for the future of the town.
Hokianga said that having that category lifted for these homes was huge.
“It helps put that future back on solid ground, recorded in writing and made visible on the whenua through the stopbanks and flood walls.“
The $14.6 million Pōrangahau Flood Resilience Project is part of Hawke’s Bay’s $256.5 million North Island Weather Events (NIWE) resilience programme.
It is a regionwide investment in stronger flood protection after Cyclone Gabrielle.
The project is funded 72% by the Government, with that contribution managed by National Infrastructure Funding and Financing (NIFF) through the Government’s Cyclone Recovery Fund.
The remaining 28% is funded by HBRC.