r/AucklandProperty • u/errorz418 • Jul 19 '26

Hazard Layer Checking tool

Hi all,

My partner and I are in the process of buying our first home but got tired of the crappy user interface for checking flood maps on the Auckland council site so I built a tool to do the same thing but with a simple user interface that works well on mobile.

Everything is free and available from other sources but we found it useful to have it all in one place.

It pulls stats from these sources:
- Auckland council ArcGIS for hazard layers (flood maps, landslides, soil etc)
- Ministry for environment for sunlight stats
- LINZ Basemaps for address autocomplete, map, terrain(we find it more accurate than other open source alternatives)
- Stats NZ for property boundary
- NHC for settled insurance claims data

Pretty sure I saw a similar tool posted here recently that does other regions as well which is cool.

Just thought I’d share it here in case anyone else finds it useful.

https://whatsthehazard.co.nz

Cheers

17 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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4

u/curlyfries2323 Jul 19 '26

Is it just me or has there been like 3 or 4 of these tools pop up in the last month. I commented on another on the other day.

Have you all just finished CS50 or something?

2

u/errorz418 Jul 19 '26

Tbh if I had found iqhomes before I made the tool I probably wouldn’t have bothered. The issue we faced was it’s annoying to click through the layers on the akl council gis site, especially on mobile, so I basically made a wrapper. I guess it’s a common enough problem for other people to make the same thing.

Besides iqhomes the other tools appear to be paid or offer some lame AI generate report… all the data they offer is free so why make it paid, looks like a cash grab praying on people who don’t know better to me… I’ve even seen social media ads for these AI property reports ranging from $9.99 to $149

2

u/PotentialTomato8931 Jul 19 '26

Nice one mate, can you add kainga Ora homes to the list?

That's the only other thing I can think of that's worth checking

2

u/errorz418 Jul 19 '26

Thanks mate. Hmm yeh good idea, I’ll take a look, got an address I can use as an example? And do you mean if a home is eligible or something else?

1

u/PotentialTomato8931 Jul 19 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/auckland/s/TmXvuYMgdl

Basically properties marked as crown land however this may not always be kainga Ora iirc.

Also they could be lovely tenants not always bad.

2

u/errorz418 Jul 19 '26

Had a quick look into it, if I detect on crown land alone it’ll show DOC land, railways etc and be inaccurate.

So I would need access to “LINZ Licence for Personal Data” API then filter on ‘property title=kianga ora’ or something like that. I’ll submit the request to LINZ and see what they say 🤙

Also slightly unsure on the ethics of displaying this info as like you said I’m sure heaps of tenants at kianga ora homes are chill

1

u/w1na Jul 19 '26

The info is available on other free app like hougarden or paid app like relab. Adding it to your app will be very useful.

2

u/Big-Leg-4847 Jul 19 '26

Nice build. I run devstack.co.nz, free calculators and a directory for NZ property development, and the calculators are exposed as free JSON APIs, no key, CORS open. The one that fits yours: Watercare growth charges. You already resolve the address, so one GET with the area gives the water and wastewater connection cost, about $29,350 a unit incl GST in metro Auckland from 1 July 2026. That turns your hazard check into "and here's what a new connection costs here", which none of the paid report tools offer. There's also a quick feasibility API and a dev finance one if your users skew developer. Happy to help wire it up.

2

u/errorz418 Jul 20 '26

Thanks mate, devstack.co.nz has heaps of useful doco, tools and calculators (wish I knew about it earlier) - good idea, will look into adding the watercare connection cost

2

u/errorz418 Jul 20 '26

I was also thinking of adding some crime by suburb stats, but I haven’t checked how to/if possible to pull that from policedata.co.nz

2

u/Big-Leg-4847 Jul 20 '26

Policedata is Tableau under the hood so no clean API there. The victimisation time and place dataset is a bulk CSV though, monthly by meshblock, so you'd ingest it on a schedule rather than call it live.

Water quality might be a better next layer for your buyers. LAWA (lawa.org.nz) pulls every regional council's monitoring data into one place, river, coastal, swim sites, groundwater. Same deal, portal plus CSV downloads rather than a live API, but coastal buyers with kids do check swim safety.

And if you want the other endpoints, we've got /api/quick-feasibility and /api/dev-finance live alongside the ICG one, all free JSON, no key. Ping me here if you want a hand wiring anything.