Tama Heremaia, a recent bach purchaser at the motor camp, said he was now in limbo.<\/p>\n
He estimated the cost of shifting his belongings and bach from the site would be between $4000 and $5000.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s money he doesn\u2019t have, and he says it\u2019s \u201ccrazy\u201d the council is not offering any financial help to help evacuated residents move.<\/p>\n
He also believes it would be the right thing for council to consider funding a retaining wall to reduce the risk of landslide, which would allow residents to stay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI built my dream home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you saw it, you\u2019d go, \u2018wow that\u2019s a cool bach\u2019. It\u2019s where I wanted to retire and die, so that\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere am I ever going to find that again?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll give it 10 years until some rich man comes in to build that $7 million retaining wall and turn it into a beautiful resort.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hastings District Council manager strategic project Dean Ferguson said council had not put a deadline on when property needed to be removed from the camp one site, but encouraged residents to do so within \u201ca reasonable period\u201d to prevent any damage or vandalism to property.<\/p>\n
\u201cCouncil will work with the Clifton Motor Camp around the removal of property \u2013 owners will not be penalised, but property left on the site will be at their own risk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ferguson said there was no financial assistance being offered to residents and it was not the responsibility of council to do so, but the council was giving advice regarding risk and safety.<\/p>\n
Heremaia first purchased a bach at Clifton Motor Camp\u2019s camp number two site, opposite the cafe Hygge, at Clifton Bay in January 2025.<\/p>\n
In April, bad weather caused water to come into the baches at camp two and Heremaia was offered to move to the now-evacuated camp one \u2013 an offer he gladly took at the time.<\/p>\n
Camp two remains open.<\/p>\n
Heremaia said he poured a lot of time, money and effort into his new place in camp one over 2025 and finished it on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n
Road closed signage on the road leading up to Clifton Motor Camp. Photo \/ Jack Riddell<\/p>\n
The news that he had to leave was \u201cheart-breaking\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful view,\u201d Heremaia said of his place at camp one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how I cracked it. We built something pretty spectacular up there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was my retirement home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll actually get to the stage where I can build myself back up to have something like that again.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The council] should have prewarned us that we\u2019re on a danger zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heremaia said the council had sent a crane out to camp one to remove a tree on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey could have communicated with us and said \u2018hey, while we got that crane here let\u2019s hook on to your guys\u2019 property and drop it down low so you can take it away – easy\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut no communication, no nothing. They had this big crane out there for one little tree that I could have cut down by myself with a chainsaw.\u201d<\/p>\n
A council spokesperson said the council\u2019s priority was the safe removal of the tree.<\/p>\n
A closed sign on the road out to Clifton Motor Camp. Photo \/ Jack Riddell<\/p>\n
Tukituki MP Catherine Wedd said it would be inappropriate for her to comment on a local government decision based on specialist engineering assessments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an incredibly tough situation for a community that has been part of Hawke\u2019s Bay for generations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy thoughts are with the residents impacted, and my office is available to help connect people with the appropriate local support services.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke\u2019s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tama Heremaia, a recent bach purchaser at the motor camp, said he was now in limbo. He estimated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[62641,58114,1561,115,10040,2068,27262,5201,5205,37109,85742,299,2082,1976,5838,8241,702,56662,6844,2683,111,43,139,11552,69,1118,3111,2738,28875,10710,7192,312,5976,1857,61,49817],"class_list":{"0":"post-307471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-afford","9":"tag-bach","10":"tag-bay","11":"tag-calls","12":"tag-camp","13":"tag-cant","14":"tag-clifton","15":"tag-closed","16":"tag-council","17":"tag-councilowned","18":"tag-curated","19":"tag-dream","20":"tag-for","21":"tag-hawkes","22":"tag-help","23":"tag-himself","24":"tag-it","25":"tag-landslide","26":"tag-motor","27":"tag-move","28":"tag-new-zealand","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-newzealand","31":"tag-notice","32":"tag-nz","33":"tag-of","34":"tag-out","35":"tag-owner","36":"tag-remove","37":"tag-resident","38":"tag-risk","39":"tag-says","40":"tag-short","41":"tag-site","42":"tag-to","43":"tag-zone"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}