Tauranga City Council's $43.5 million catch up on the city's stormwater issues is being administered by its own mini-bureaucracy, city councillors decided this week.

Flooding at Matua in April this year.

Fixing the stormwater systems in various districts of the city is now the responsibility of the Integrated Stormwater Project, being co-ordinated by senior strategic planner Campbell Larking and drainage and services team leader Graeme Dohnt.

Graeme is setting aside all his other responsibilities and is taking up the integrated project roll full time, says Campbell.

They will be supervising a cross-organisational team delivering results across six workstreams; stormwater modelling, flood risk mapping, short term improvements, regulatory options and communication and education.

The move comes after floods in Mount Maunganui and Matua in April this year. Tauranga City Council was accused during the annual plan submission in May of allowing residents homes to flood and spending money on 'silly fluffy stuff” instead of fixing stormwater drains.

The accusation, and possibly the council's legal responsibility as a local authority under the Resource Management Act to understand the effects and extent of natural hazards within its jurisdiction, manage those effects and provide that information to the public – spurred the councillors to approve $8.5 million spending on stormwater this financial year - $2 million more than the $5.5 million stormwater receives normally. Millions more is expected to be spent over the 2014/15 and following years.

The city council was warned about its stormwater situation in 2005 when a report commissioned following the Bureta flooding, recommended the city needed to spend $52 million on stormwater.

The integrated project also has a focus on communication and education because the project is set up not just to mitigate and reduce flood damage, but also to develop knowledge and rules that will better serve the city in future years.

It is also going to take some time before ratepayers see much action, with a lot of the early work being taken up with updating flood risk information and maps across the city.

The communications team is also looking for a new way to describe a ‘one in 50 year flood' and help landowners understand ways they can better manage flood water , and clarity about landowner versus council responsibilities.

Regular reports will be made to the Projects and Monitoring Committee.

There will be some small interim works done says Campbell. Overland flow paths are being incorporated in the Pilot Bay boardwalk design. Another initiative underway is redesigning the catchpit entry structures so the stormwater drains don't clog with debris. Graeme is working on that with Hume Pipes and the Auckland city council.

When Murray Guy asked how the project was dealing with the ratepayers whose homes were damaged in the flooding in April, infrastructure services manager Ian Gooden say he's dealing with four or five property owners.