Ōmokoroa Country Club – Three Waters Design for Luxury Retirement Village

“Awa Environmental has added huge value to our business. The team brings a commercial mindset, considering every possible solution and taking into account constructability and costs. I know when we are working through the design that it is the best solution for the situation, and we will get a good outcome. They are brilliant as part of a wider consultant team or on their own and are very strong working with councils. To minimise risk and ensure a successful outcome I would only use Awa no matter where I am working in New Zealand.” –  Daryl Scott, Director, Ōmokoroa Country Club

Summary

• The Ōmokoroa Country Club is a 14-hectare luxury retirement village in the Western Bay of Plenty consisting of 160 villas, a clubhouse, lakehouse, café, and other amenities currently under construction.
• Originally containing small orchards and farms with no internal roads, the site features a natural wetland and pond in a gully along its western boundary.
• Awa Environmental started on the project during preliminary design in 2021 and has delivered designs for all three water services, landform, and roading, plus plans for erosion and sediment control and stormwater system maintenance.
• Awa solved a range of complex design and consenting challenges to ensure a successful outcome and exceed client expectations while saving costs.
• We now support construction by making design adjustments for the client due to masterplan changes and monitoring development progress.

Challenges

• The client’s vision for the Country Club is for it to be high-value, enduring, and easy to maintain, and delivered efficiently and cost-effectively.
• Awa was engaged to provide integrated designs for three waters, landform, and roads, and plans for erosion and sediment control and stormwater system maintenance.
• These needed consents from Western Bay of Plenty District Council (WBoPDC) and Bay of Plenty Regional Council (BoPRC).
• Part of the existing site was prone to significant flooding, meaning building consents could fall under Section 72, where land titles would note a flood hazard, impacting insurance premiums and potentially sale value.
• Various council requirements meant the site needed to slope away from the road and most stormwater runoff needed to flow into the wetland and pond.
• This created a wastewater challenge: it would have to flow against the slope to discharge into the municipal system beneath the access road.
• The client sought to maximise developable land, which necessitated building a wall along its western boundary, adjacent to the gully.
• This introduced complexity to stormwater discharge design by creating a large vertical drop between the development and gully.

Solutions

• Awa used integrated engineering design, modelling, and planning to deliver:
  
  • Designs for the three water services, landform, and roading
    
  • Erosion and sediment control plans
    
  • A stormwater system maintenance plan for construction onwards.
• Early in design, we worked with both councils to determine that full hydraulic neutrality through costly underground peak flow detention wasn’t needed for the entire site.
• Instead, Awa only had to limit stormwater discharge across the main road through extended detention and earthworks design.
• To meet this and other council requirements Awa adjusted the site’s landform, adding three pump stations to the wastewater network to counter the slope towards the gully.
• The stormwater system features overland flood paths and provides extended detention using oversized pipes and a weir system, reducing the impact of everyday storms.
• We updated and used a local flood model to inform design and support quality assurance – for example, by enabling efficient and accurate checking of flood levels and flow path performance.
• Modelling also enabled us to help the client with building consents by:
  
  • Confirming flow paths would convey flood water through the site without impacting floor levels, avoiding consents under Section 72
  • Providing a standardised response to flood-related queries from WBoPDC for individual villa RFIs.  
• To manage the vertical drop at the western boundary, Awa worked with a geotech specialist to ensure the three outlets discharging into the wetland and pond were structurally robust.

Benefits

• The designs, plans, and consents achieved support the transformation of the site into a high-value, easy-to-maintain retirement village that will deliver long-term returns to the client and benefit the wider community.
• The practical, cost-effective solutions thoroughly explored and developed with the client addressed the wide range of design and consenting challenges.
• Flood risk and insurance premiums were reduced through a high-quality stormwater system developed using integrated design and modelling.
• Effective, early collaboration with councils reduced infrastructure costs by avoiding unnecessary hydraulic neutrality requirements.
• A standardised response for numerous individual villa RFIs during the building consent stage provided another significant cost saving to the client.
• Awa maintained clear communication, responded rapidly, and met tight timeframes throughout the project.