Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill

This part of the Waitaki District Council Reserves and Other Land Empowering Bill, which vests those parcels of land in fee simple, is the part that probably matters the most to the folk who are in the parcel of land in Ōāmaru and the folk who are in the parcel of land in the Palmerston Showgrounds. It matters a lot to them that this bill passes through this House, because they have bought property or they are in property that a council and they mistakenly thought had a title that was able to be transferred. It was determined that it was not transferable, and so this bill is correcting those mistakes made by a council. The impact of that will be positive for those two families living in those two homes, and so this is quite a critical part of this bill for those people.

Also, of course, this clause relates to Forrester Heights, and, again, it will correct a historical mistake whereby the land was wrongly designated as a reserve. It never was a reserve; it was a mistake. It was correctly gazetted back in—I forget the year now, but in the late 1800s as an endowment in aid of borough funds, so in effect it was endowed in the predecessor of the Waitaki District Council, effectively as a land bank. The current council of the day wished to have that designation corrected, so that it can do whatever with that piece of land. Whatever it does is up to it, and so it should be. Thank you.

Clause 6 agreed to.

Clause 7 Lookout Point land declared to be endowment land