Ruling upsets Taylor’s Mistake owners

Press, 10 April 1979, Page 6

Ruling upsets Taylor’s Mistake owners

Taylor's Mistake bach owners, under a Christchurch City Council mandate to remove their bui'dings in 1986, are complying with lew licence provisions under irotest.

The installing of electric or gas toilets, a pre-condi-tion to being able to stay on public land even until 1986. should have exempted owners from “further harassment,” said a Taylor’s Mistake Association letter being sent in with licence documents.

The letter was considered by the council’s housing and property committee y ester-' day. “If there was some good' reason for the removal of ] the baches, we would not! mind,” said the letter. When the baches are gone,’ the coastal land will revert j to public recreation use. The letter said that many) surf club members came from bach families, and the club would be weakened when baches were taken away.

Bach owners kept the tracks and paths clear and in good repair, and all buildings were well off the beach where public access was not prevented. By insisting on its policy, the council would lose buildings of historical and sentimental value.

“We would further point out that by paying the $5O a year licence fee, and by using electric toilets — particularly in the summer when the M.E.D. has no load problem — we are more than paying our way,” the letter said. In addition, bach owners wondered what sanitary measures would now be required of freehold property owners on the hillside.

The housing and property committee ha'd little comment on the letter.

, “There has been ample discussion on this in the past," said Cr D. C. Close. I Adams bequest I Duder Homes, Ltd, has j been selected by a council ’ sub-committee to build the special, 14-unit pensioner I flat development on a large ! rear section at 445 Papanui Road. The flats were made posIsible by the Adams Estate. I whose total realisable assets are expected to produce, I $289,000. The total estimated • cost of the project is

$298,000. It will be extensively landscaped, and available to a variety of elderly applicants. One flat will be designed for someone with a physical disability.

Tenants of the flats will not have to meet strict counted asset requirements set I down by the Government, I since the project has been financed privately. Stairwell screens will be installed at two completed pensioner flat complexes to get rid of a “wind tunnel” effect between buildings. Such enclosures would have been included in original contracts for Innes and Pickering courts if the added cost had not put the projects over Housing Corporation finance limits.

Both projects would have a $15,000 total cost. Money would come from the pensioner housing account. The committee chairman (Cr Mollie Clark) said the council would try to have the job done before winter started.

Screening has also been done at Harman Street flats to avoid the problem there. Cr Clark said an open stairwell could be "quite a drafty freezing chamber” when it was raining or windy, even in warm months.