Upper Selwyn Huts residents have been given a reprieve by the district council.
On Wednesday district councillors unanimously voted to adopt a consultation proposal and pause the plan to remove the huts.
Councillors will adopt a more collaborative approach to working with the residents who were facing eviction from their homes on June 30, 2039.
The Upper Selwyn Huts settlement was established in 1888. The huts' deeds of licence, allowing residents to continue living in the village near Lake Ellesmere, had been renewed for decades. But in March the district council made the decision to evict them, citing climate change, emergency access concerns, and high infrastructure costs among its reasons.
Kirrily Fea has been living at the Upper Selwyn Huts since 2019 and thought she would be in her home for years to come.
She said the council's new approach is the best outcome.
“It has been a huge relief, I had tears in my eyes. This was the best outcome we could have hoped for today.
“We feel the council are really wanting to collaborate with us now and they accept this is high significance level that requires full collaboration,” Fea said after the meeting.
District councillors voted in favour of six recommendations. They included pausing the current process and extending the current deed of licence - due to expire on September 30, 2024 - to July 1, 2025, while the council uses the 10 months to engage with the huts community and potentially set a new eviction date.
But the battle came out at a cost. Residents spent more than $10,000 in legal fees, and Fea said it has been a high-stress period.
“It affects your mental health and it affects it permanently so this stress will not leave me for the rest of my life.
"Their mental health has suffered they have literally been coming up to me saying they were terrified... people have been crying, people have not been going to work because the stress is too much.”
Legal pressure and more than 200 queries and Official Information Act requests from residents to the council have now forced its hand.
Prior to the council vote Fea and the residents’ barrister Clare Lenihan laid out the residents' concerns to councillors. These included the settlement's finite future and the proposed hut inspections.
“We note the finite decision made back in March as well as the inspection programme have not been included in the scope for this extended consultation. We believe all issues should be included in this collaboration,” Fea told councillors.
Whether the finite period will be reconsidered was not discussed, but council executive director enabling services Tim Harris said the inspection programme aims to ensure the safety of residents.
Harris said the consultation will cover issues including the future timeline for the huts' occupation, the potential for a district-wide rate and compensation for residents.
Lenihan said a draft report by Underground Overground Archaeology found the huts should be protected.
“The assessment of the heritage values of the Upper Selwyn Huts finds the place to have special heritage significance as a testament to the recreational sport of angling and the small fishing hut communities that once graced New Zealand’s river and lake fronts in the 19th and 20th centuries.
“The huts are an example of an increasingly rare type of vernacular architecture, which represents the Kiwi No 8 wire tradition of do-it-yourself. The huts were known nationally and even internationally, attracting even peers of the realm.
“The settlement evolved into a small bach community, representative of the type that were central to the traditional New Zealand holiday experience during much of the 20th century.
“For these reasons the Upper Selwyn Huts are assessed to have significance for their archaeological, architectural, cultural, historical and technological values.”
