PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS SUMMARY VERSION OF ONE OF THE KNOWN CONSEQUENCES FROM THE LAST AMALGAMATION OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN HB. Ive posted this on the Dont Amalgamate HB FB page too. Feel free to share around HB people/voters. The 1989 reorganisation saw the demise of the HB Harbour Board & the creation of the HB Regional Council which was given the newly-created Port of Napier Ltd, and it became the lessor of 2,000 residential leasehold properties - Napier City Council received only 200, & each were also given commercial/industrial leasehold land too. The income from the leases & where it must be spent (harbour works, coastal works) was prescribed in law, historically preserved. In 2002 legislation was passed that significantly widened where the proceeds from freeholding of leases could be spent - on anything that they wanted as long as it goes through the annual plan process. Spending of the income from rents was still restricted but the HBRCs geographic area was significantly widened to include the entire coastline down to Wairarapa in the south & Wairoa in the north. The 2002 legislation was also fully intended by the government to facilitate the mass freeholding of 900 residential lessees who had banded together, spent a lot of money on valuation & legal advice, spent innumerable volunteer hours working with Parliamentary Counsel on a word by word basis to ensure lessees protections wouldnt be eroded unintentionally while also satisfying the Councils shared purpose of freeing up the spending restrictions. Just days before the bills 3rd & final reading a deal was struck behind closed doors that resulted in then-MP Rick Barker introducing his Supplementary Order Paper that completely wiped out the lessees bulk freeholding proposition by allowing the money already held in the HB Harbour Board Land Account to be spent on 3 SPORTING FACILITIES across the region & no public consultation either - Parliament simply said they could dip into that fund, despite the historical or even new restrictions! Had the bulk deal gone ahead the HBRC could have funded those non-harbour related projects, including the $1.5M that got the Pettigrew Green Arena built, from the proceeds of the deal as they wouldve survived the annual plan process. With no need to consult its ratepayers & with the gift of unencumbered funds, HBRC had no real need to proceed with the bulk freeholding deal SO THEY SIMPLY DIDNT FORMALLY CONSIDER IT. Had that occurred & they rejected the deal on the basis of the valuation, lessees would have sought an arbitration process. Considering the deal informally as they did meant no pathway or process to arbitrate. Now the HBRC have on-sold the rents, for the next 50 years, from its remaining 600 lessees to ACC - which many believe is destined to be spent on the Ruataniwha Dam project. The fact is all this NAPIER-derived money has been spent all over the region since the 1989 Reorganisation. Intended to support the Port - an infrastructural asset of the whole region - the leases were also intended to encourage the development of NAPIER home building at an affordable cost to people who werent able to afford the land as well as the cost of improvements. That historically enshrined intention has been demolished by both the property market & the councils intention to maximise the returns - NEVER MIND THE 900% RENT RENEWALS THAT HAVE OCCURRED SINCE 1989! If the current amalgamation proposal succeeds MORE NAPIER MONEY & ASSETS WILL BE SPENT EVERYWHERE BUT IN NAPIER - UNFAIR, UNDEMOCRATIC & UNNECESSARY.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 05:55:58 +0000