From landslides to a $6.7m buyout: Brook St recovery reaches major milestone
Four years after landslides from public land threatened homes on a Nelson street, the final project in the city’s major post-slip recovery has been completed.
Nelson City Council marked what it called a “major milestone” with a blessing held at Brook St on Thursday morning.
This was followed by a barbecue and community art project attended by councillors, contractors, Nelson MP Rachel Boyack and mayor Nick Smith in the afternoon.
The completion of the Brook St work brings an end to the council’s significant landslip recovery programme two years ahead of schedule.
Photo: Braden Fastier / Nelson Mail
It follows the August 2022 weather event that damaged 570 properties, triggered 550 landslips, and resulted in 109 homes being red stickered.
Eighteen significant slips were also triggered on council-owned land within the Nelson urban area.
“The completion of the slip recovery work is a major milestone,” Smith said.
“This was the worst storm to hit our region in 50 years and the most complex work was the slip remediation programme.”
At Brook St, multiple slips were identified on council-owned land above properties following the storm, putting homes below at risk.
The council initially planned to remediate three slips affecting private properties with the work included in a $17.3 million city-wide slip repair programme approved in May 2023.
But further significant rain that month prompted additional geotechnical investigations which identified a larger area of unstable land, making that remediation no longer appropriate.
In October 2023, councillors agreed to instead seek to buy back 10 properties at 327 to 345 Brook St and construct a “toe bund” below the hillside.
A bund is an engineered barrier, embankment, or wall constructed at the base or along the slope of a hill to protect infrastructure and properties from landslides.
The purchases were completed in 2024 for about $6.7m, with the houses later offered for relocation.
A council spokesperson said all of the homes had sold for a total of $79,701.
The final house was removed from the site in February this year, clearing the way for the remaining earthworks.
Rather than attempting to stabilise the entire hillside, the completed project was designed to manage the risk posed by future floods.
A large earth bund has now been constructed to capture landslide debris before it reaches Brook St while swales and upgraded stormwater infrastructure direct water flowing off the hillside into new intake structures.
The system is intended to protect the road, underground infrastructure and properties on the opposite side of Brook St.
Council said the site, known as “slip zero”, was the last of its significant slip sites remediated. Others required substantially different engineering solutions.
A debris fence elsewhere on Brook St was a first for Nelson and similar to barriers used on State Highway 1 near Kaikoura.
A smaller version was used at the Miro St slip site beneath Grampians Reserve.
Council executive director delivery Alec Louverdis said Nelson was “extremely lucky” that weather allowed work to be completed before another significant weather event.
Council had undertaken remediation approaches that had never been done in Nelson before.
“While the underlying cause was the same at every site, a slip triggered by heavy rain, the remediation, approach and methodology for each was significantly different.”
At Atmore Terrace, a specialised spider-drill rig capable of operating on steep terrain drilled 40mm-wide ground anchors seven metres into the hillside to secure a concrete ground beam and reinforced geomat mesh.
In the Maitai Valley, a flying-fox rig was used to transport materials across a steep gorge to repair a 12-metre section of the city’s above-ground raw water pipeline from the Maitai dams.
More than 45 resilience and recovery projects have been completed across Nelson since the 2022 storm, ranging from flood repairs and retaining walls to intake and culvert upgrades.
Central government contributed $12.3m towards the recovery, including $6m towards improving slip remediation, $6m towards property buyouts and $300,000 towards monitoring the Tāhunanui slip.
The council, with government support, spent close to $10m buying 20 properties affected by the event, including 13 properties in The Brook.
Smith said there were “no easy answers” when homes were uneconomic to repair, but the approach had enabled affected residents to move on.
Latest council financial figures show about $1.33m was spent on the Brook St slip project during the 2025/26 financial year.
A further $84,000 is proposed to be carried into the current financial year, while $50,000 is budgeted for plant maintenance in 2027/28.
While the significant landslip recovery programme is finished, the council’s wider resilience programme is continuing.
The first four stages of Regional Infrastructure Fund work in the Maitai have been completed, with the final stage due to begin in early 2027.
Mitigation work is also being planned for Little Todd Valley and Glenduan, alongside smaller intake, culvert and rock-armouring projects.
The council has received another $9m of central government funding through the Regional Infrastructure Fund.
Louverdis said potential for flooding was always a consideration, but its mindset had shifted from a “when it happens” mentality to preparedness, planning and resilience.
Smith said the work had left Nelson better prepared than it was before the 2022 storm.
“Nelson is a stronger, more resilient city than it was four years ago,” he said.
Nelson MP Rachel Boyack said she was pleased to be able to advocate alongside the mayor for funding to ensure those who couldn’t return to their homes received a buy out.
“This was unusual given the event wasn’t a nationwide emergency, but the right thing to do given how similar the impacts were when compared to Cyclone Gabrielle.”
She particularly acknowledged former Minister of Finance Grant Robertson who heard the concerns of the community and signed off on the funding.
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