Hut residents have spent more than $10,000 to put pressure on the Selwyn District Council since March when it set an eviction date for June 30, 2039.
And yesterday district councillors voted in favour of six recommendations, which included pausing the current process and extending the current deed of licence - due to expire on September 30, 2024 - to July 1, 2025, with the council using the 10 months to engage with the huts community and potentially set a new eviction date.
Legal pressure and more than 200 queries and Official Information Act requests from residents to council have now forced its hand.
The residents’ barrister Clare Lenihan said the original consultation period did not allow residents enough time to respond.
“The residents were given two working days back in March to digest a 110-page document . . . certainly the residents would say it's unfair.”
Selwyn Hut Owners Association chair Graham Evans said residents had gone to great expense to fight the March decision.
“I would liked to have seen some better understanding from council before we had to get into this situation,” Evans said.
Deputy mayor Malcolm Lyall admitted more consultation could have been done.
“Consultation is a tricky thing and no one’s ever happy with it, but perhaps we haven’t handled it very well,” Lyall said.
Council chief executive Sharon Mason said the council had done what it said it would do.
“What we’ve always said all the way along is that we want to get feedback from the community and we have been really open about that and what you’re seeing is a reflection of that,” Mason said.
“We’ve had a number of town hall meetings, we’ve had a number of conversations with the community, I’ve been down to visit the community myself and taking on the feedback from that we’ve said here’s an alternative route.”
In 2019, it was decided the community’s future would be short-term and finite. Mason said the term would still be finite, but no eviction date had been set.
When the decision was made, climate change and the future of the wastewater system were the major concerns.
The wastewater issues have now been solved with a pipeline to be built connecting the huts to the Pines Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Evans accepts climate change may eventually force residents to leave.
“We do realise if there’s a change in climate, we are not going to stay there under water.”
Evans said he was proud of the community for standing its ground.
“There has been a magnificent amount of work done by the whole team now,” Evans said.
“We’ve got some really good people pulling the oars and we’re all going in the same direction.”
The council is planning to spend $41,500 to undertake an external building and lot inspection of the existing huts and any other associated structures to determine compliance using rules from 1947 as the baseline requirement.
The extra year of consultation is also expected to cost council about $100,000.
Mason said the cost was part of ensuring the council did a thorough job.
“Upper Selwyn Huts is a unique place and its better we go through a process and see what the outcome is in 12 months.”
As part of the consultation, how much residents pay for the wastewater pipeline will also be reassessed. In March, it was decided residents would pay 30 percent of the $2 million.
