Jones Dail: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Jones Dail: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:14450] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I will be a bit boring during this stage because I am going to look at this from something of a legalistic viewpoint from the point of view of anyone who owns a house in the area anyone who wants to sell a house in the area and of the housing needs in the area. We have already heard a lot about the need for houses in New Zealand. There is a shortage of houses in New Zealand and that is important in this part of the bill. 
I have put forward two amendments. I have made it clear that clause 3 should be amended so that all people who own land in the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area are notified that this bill is being passed and that the purposes of the bill itself are noted on their title by a  
Gazette 
 notice so that when someone comes to buy these pieces of land in this area they know that the land is subject to this bill. I am sure that when the existing owners get notices to say that they are subject to this bill they will be horrified because they will realise that it will be harder for them to sell their houses. This will be another encumbrance on the title another thing in the land information memorandum procedure that a buyer will want to go through. If say the buyer wants to do an addition to the house—put on a garage or do something else that requires a resource consent as everything does under this bill—it will cost him or her extra money because of this bill. 
How many agreements for the sale and purchase of land in this area will collapse because of this bill? Of course there will also be cases where lawyers will not be aware that this bill has been passed and there will be even more complicated court cases. So it is vital that this is noted on the title. That is an amendment to clause 6. 
The second amendment is very interesting. It is an amendment to clause 9. Clause 9 deals with heritage area objectives and paragraph (j) states that one objective is “to recognise that people live and work in the heritage area in distinct communities and should enable those people to provide for their social economic environmental and cultural well-being:” I thought about that and I thought that if people live there presumably they live in something like a house. 
I believe this clause must be amended so that it recognises that people live and work in the area in distinct communities and enables these people to provide for their social economic environmental housing needs and cultural well-being. Without my amendment are we saying that people can live there but we will not be concerned about their housing needs? That is what the bill says without my amendment. This Waitakere City Council bill is saying: “We do not care about housing needs in the area; people can live there but what they live in goodness only knows. We are not interested in their housing needs.” 
That is such a blatant omission from the bill and it justifies my concern that the Waitakere City Council is not interested in any extensions to homes. For example if a Maori family or a Maori group wants to set up a whare of one kind or another well goodbye—that will not happen. If there is some special need for one of those community places where items are stored and suchlike we can forget it. It will not happen under this bill. This bill will prejudice the Maori people in the area very very considerably and I am sure they have been misinformed. We have heard from Mr Carter that Waitakere City Council officials have misinformed people. It is very clear that the Maori people have been misinformed by the Waitakere City Council. 
Again as a lawyer I say that lawyers will make a lot of money on this bill. What does clause 9(c) mean when it states: “carefully consider the risks and uncertainties”? How can we consider risks and uncertainties? The consideration of a risk and an uncertainty by definition is never-ending. One never knows when a risk ceases to be a risk or when an uncertainty ceases to be an uncertainty. One has to “take into account the best information available;” in considering these applications. How does one know that something is the best information? We have had a survey done that we know has the wrong information. 
This bill will be a real lawyer’s dream. It will prejudice housing needs in the Waitakere area. It will lay out all sorts of problems when one searches the title and finds there is nothing on the title and a lawyer will assume it is OK to go ahead and buy the place. Boy oh boy! A Minister of Housing who votes for this bill should realise that there are grave consequences. A proper Minister of Housing should ensure that people are warned about the risk. We talked about land agents not doing their job properly; well the Waitakere City Council and anyone who supports this bill is not supporting homeowners.