Sage Eugenie: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6612. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. I am pleased to take a short call on the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill. I have been pleased to be a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee which as Nikki Kaye noted has worked very diligently on this bill. I am grateful to Mr Parker for his explanation of the history of the Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill because it was very puzzling as a new member to see that there were two pieces of legislation that had gone through different select committees that dealt with the same piece of land. 
The Green Party like the select committee has been diligent on the bill. Our co-leader Metiria Turei visited the site at Lookout Point—which for members who have not been there is this piece of land Forrester Heights—and talked with the locals who were concerned about its future status; some of those people made submissions to the select committee. The Green Party’s position was to support this bill at its first reading to the select committee and that is because it fixes historical clerical errors in relation to the legal status of two areas of land that continue to be uncontroversial. But based on public submissions to the select committee strong community concerns about the proposed sale of Lookout Point by the council and the inadequate consultation that the council did in relation to its proposed subdivision we will now be opposing the bill unless there is support for Supplementary Order Paper 150 in my name. That Supplementary Order Paper seeks to delete clause 7 which is the substantive clause in relation to Lookout Point and to make consequential changes to the bill. 
The uncontroversial clauses in the bill are in relation to the reserve status of land with a former caretaker’s cottage on it which is associated with the Palmerston Showgrounds in North Otago and another small lot in Oamaru. Because the council sold these lots when it did not have the power to sell them the bill regularises that by revoking the reserve status. It was those mistakes in the purported sale of properties that the council thought that it owned but were actually Crown-owned reserve that have obviously got implications for the current owners and occupiers of the land and obviously should be resolved. So we are supportive of those clauses that clear up those ownership issues for the current landholders. 
But it is clause 7 that is problematic because that is seeking to clarify the status of the Forrester Heights area of Lookout Point and that is to be endowment land held by the Waitaki District Council. As endowment land it would be able to be sold by the council for this subdivision at Forrester Heights and the council would use the funds I understand to promote the restoration of the Oamaru Opera House and the art gallery. Of course that was the issue that attracted quite substantial submissions and as Maggie Barry has noted quite weighty submissions to the select committee because of community concern. Certainly using the funds for the opera house and the art gallery is very worthy but so is the retention in public ownership of land that the community values for recreation for walking and for the fact that it is the backdrop to the town and has got sweeping views from Cape Wanbrow out over the harbour and the town. 
That is why we have changed our status on the bill and are not supportive of the land being endowment land for council purposes. That is largely because of the lack of consultation by the council. Submitters’ evidence was that the council had not consulted properly when it undertook the application for a subdivision and that in fact it had granted itself a resource consent for the subdivision without that consent being publicly notified under the Resource Management Act and without appointing external commissioners to consider the application. So there was no opportunity for the public to get involved under the Resource Management Act processes and give their views to council on the potential impacts of the subdivision and on the value of that land to the public. I think that is partly why there has been such strong community concern because there has not been a legitimate avenue for that to be expressed through the due legal process. Then when the subdivision consent for Forrester Heights was due to lapse because it had not been implemented the council extended the lapsing period again without that being publicly notified. 
As other members have noted the land is significant because of its sweeping coastal views because of its use for recreation because the little blue penguin colony is at the base of the cliffs and because of the limestone fossils and the use of the area by moas in the past. The community did not get a chance through the Resource Management Act process to highlight all of these values and to point out to the council that that would be affected by the subdivision. 
As one submitter Helen Stead a former Waitaki District councillor said “WDC action by-passing formal local government planning process in favour of asking central government to make decisions over local land use without first giving local residents opportunity to comment is unacceptable. … Oamaru & Waitaki District residents & ratepayers have not been given the chance to submit on either the revoking of the Reserve status or the non-notified consent granting approval for development & sale of the land.” Certainly we were given assurances by the mayor of the council that the subdivision signs would be removed but I am not aware of the actual resource consent for subdivision having been withdrawn by the district council so that means it continues to have the legal right to proceed with the subdivision if this bill goes through and if the land becomes endowment land which the council can then onsell. 
As other members of the House have noted there has been quite considerable evidence historical evidence by submitters on the use of the land and photographs like this one show the 1890 Arbor Day celebrations and the fact that the land has been treated as if it were a public reserve for more than a century. It was not only these Arbor Day celebrations and the fact that trees were planted there but just the public use of the area as well. So there is strong public support for the land remaining in council ownership and there was evidence provided by Mr Monks that the initial decision to vest the land as a reserve was not made in error. The evidence he gave was about the way the land had been treated by the Crown and local council since 1862 and of course it was recognised and designated as a reserve in the district plan until 2005 when the council changed that designation. 
I certainly understand that the council may well choose to reconsider whether the subdivision development would proceed but it still has the resource consent that would allow it to do that and that is why the Green Party is opposing the bill unless Supplementary Order Paper 150 to delete clause 7 as it applies to Lookout Point is passed because there has been an inadequate process and inadequate consultation by council with the community. The bill would essentially legitimise that and create another wrong by allowing the land to be sold. Thank you.