Williams Poto: Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Canterbury Property Boundaries and Related Matters Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11679. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East):Thank you to the last speaker Jono Naylor. I want to add a little bit of clarity to your speech on this but I want to start with actually acknowledging the work that the Minister for Land Information has done on this bill. She was very open in encouraging the Christchurch MPs to get involved in discussions early on when the bill was being put together. We all have an expectation that our property boundary issues will be resolved and there was a very real danger that unless we could agree on a way forward there might be some discussion and dissension and debate. I want to acknowledge the fact that she got the parties into the room with the officials to talk through some of the key points about this bill.As a matter of background as some of the previous speakers have said what happened was that the earth and the property boundaries were impacted by things such as lateral spread. When the earth stretches and potentially stretches your boundary it also has the impact in some places where the earth lifted of shrinking boundaries. So in order to be fair to property owners in order to be fair to the ratepayers of Christchurch something had to go in place to ensure that boundaries could be—if they needed to be—redrawn but could be in an equitable way so that it could minimise whatever dispute between boundary neighbours. This bill was put together in order for that to be accomplished.As a very visual kind of representation of what happened we have a large section of the Avon River flowing through my electorate and a large part of the red zone is actually bound on either side of the Avon River. What happened was that one side of the river dropped and the other side of the river spread. So when you drive down places like New Brighton Road for example on one side of the road you are actually below the waterline of the river. So there are impacts upon you as a property owner. Large tracts of that land have been red-zoned so that is taken out of the equation—that is not covered by this bill. Immediately up against the red zone of course are the properties that are still zoned as being able to be habitable because the land is still relatively OK. So it is those properties that are up against the red zone or up against those areas of land that have been significantly impacted that this bill will apply to.What I do want to clarify in the previous speaker’s speech is the issue around interim surveys. Surveys were conducted on normal properties prior to the earthquake. You have a survey. Then the earthquake happened and then we have a period before this bill takes effect. The surveys that were conducted from the time after the earthquake sequence and before this bill will take effect—this is the interim period for the survey. Those surveys will be quite different in many cases from surveys that were done prior to the earthquake sequence. It is these surveys that may provide some contention and some dispute amongst neighbours.So that is where the submitters actually made the major contribution to this bill. The New Zealand Law Society provided quite a comprehensive submission on that dealing with the issue of what an interim survey actually was and then with its suggestions on how parties who might be in dispute actually could resolve those conflicts. It is those key concerns that the Local Government and Environment Committee looked at and reviewed. So when the bill came back to the House the select committee had considered those particular issues and the mechanism with which those parties potentially in dispute could resolve those disputes.It also provided the mechanism that may provide compensation for some property owners who will be disadvantaged by any new boundaries that may be drawn. At the end of the day it could be that some boundaries go into areas that might be at the edges of rivers or creeks for example and the boundaries are no longer appropriate. So there are opportunities within this bill to provide some remedy for property owners in that regard. We have had a lot of zoning done to us as Canterbury property owners so we are really pleased that this bill addresses some key concerns. Some of the concerns will be around property value of course but they are mostly around ensuring that people feel that there is a fair process that they are going to get a fair deal and that if they have decided to stay on their properties then those properties are going to be identified and titled appropriately.Without wanting to hold up this bill we do commend it. It is a good piece of legislation. The select committee did work well on addressing those issues of the interim survey and how the remediation could be put in place after the bill is actually enacted. We do commend it to the House.