District Advice

Horizons’ District Advice team provides information and advice to members of the public on natural hazards and Horizons’ One Plan requirements for property developments as well as information for prospective property purchases, insurance matters and land valuation assessments. The most common advice sought is around flooding and residential development.

District Advice also manages Horizons’ obligations to the Building Act in relation to dams. You can find more information about dam building consents and dam safety regulations here.

Property Information Requests

Our District Advice service can provide information such as:

• Natural Hazard information and flood history to inform sale or purchase of a property*
• Whether a property was recorded as being affected by previous flood events
• Advice on flood inundation levels and other relevant information when building a new dwelling or extending an existing dwelling (this may be required by a city or district council to inform their decision on a building consent or land use consent)
• Advice on regional matters when proposing a subdivision (this may be required by a city or district council to inform their decision); and
• Information for insurance, valuations or other purposes.

*NOTE: District Advice property information requests are not a substitute for Land Information Memorandum (LIM) reports that are issued by district and city councils.

LIM reports provide a summary of important information that is held by district and city councils e.g. zoning, three waters (drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services), rapid building assessments following an event, building and resource consents, natural hazards etc.

The Real Estate Agents Authority (REAA) is an independent government body which regulates the real estate agent sector in New Zealand. The REAA website includes information on what you need to know when buying or selling property.

For information on resource consents please email our Consents team on consents.enquiries@horizons.govt.nz or call our Horizons Duty Planner on Freephone 0508 800 800. For more information about resource consents and how to apply for them, click here. 

Accessing information via Horizons Maps | Public Viewer

Many property-related questions can be answered by accessing information from our online maps. We recommend checking these out before making a request. 

The following listed information (including but not limited to) can be found on Horizons Maps | Public Viewer by selecting the relevant map profile and clicking on the ‘Layer’ icon to list and tick the relevant map features or layers*:

• Natural Hazards e.g. flooding, faults, liquefaction, tsunami, coastal and volcanic hazards (select the Regional Natural Hazard Viewer Map Profile)
• Land Use Capability (LUC) classes shown as Land Resource Inventory (LRI 2) (select District Advice Map profile)
• Fundamental soil information e.g. classification and drainage class (District Advice Map)
• Ground water bores or drinking supply information (District Advice Map)
• Waterways / streams with One Plan Schedule 2 Values (One Plan Map)
• Horizons Resource Consent information (Regulatory Activity Map).

The extent of watercourses shown on the One Plan Public Viewer Map as having the Flood Control and Drainage (FC/D) value may not reflect the current extent of the flood control and/or drainage schemes. We recommend you contact consents.enquiries@horizons.govt.nz for advice before applying for consent for works in these waterways. 

In all cases, the One Plan remains the authoritative document for assessing and determining resource consent applications.

Make a Property Information Request

If you have any property-related questions, contact our District Advice team via our online enquiry form. Please provide as much information as you can and attach any site plans, maps or other related documentation.

District Advice and the One Plan

Horizons’ One Plan aims to discourage new dwellings, businesses, community facilities and infrastructure being proposed in areas that are likely to be inundated during a 1 in 200 year flood event (0.5% Annual Exceedance Probability).

As Horizons’ One Plan only contains flood hazard policies, not rules, our role is to provide city and district councils, as building consent authorities, with useful information to help with decision making around plan changes, subdivision and other residential development. This includes flood hazard information and floor level recommendations.

The final decision on any subdivision or building consent application lies with those councils. In cases where flood hazards can’t be avoided, we work with city and district councils to consider flood mitigation measures. We also provide high-level advice on any resource consents that may be required from us.