The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1956. Waimairi Council and Harewood

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28051, 20 August 1956, Page 10

The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1956. Waimairi Council and Harewood

The Waimairi County Council’s enthusiasm for the Harewood airport is apparently exceeded only by jits wish that neighbouring landowners get a false price for their properties. “It would be disastrous I “to subdivide that area”, Cr. J. I. said, but “there must be i “ some form of compensation Sections near the airport have no I real residential value because in a [few years the noise would be intolerable, unless the complaints of householders compelled the removal of the airport. In that case the whole community would subsidise the sellers of the sections by paying the cost of a new airport and by putting up with a less convenient and economical one. What the [Waimairi County Council now proposes is a form of Danegelt, based on the reasonable assumption that it would be cheaper to compensate landowners on their terms now than to move the airport later. In .fact the community should not be called on to do either. Cr. C. L. Austin urged that the council’s ratepayers should be compensated for their loss, presumably meaning not an actual loss, but the loss of an opportunity to make a handsome profit out of persons eagerly seeking building sites. The opportunity landowners have imagined might disappear for several reasons; but the point is whether this possible loss should be allowed to outweigh the community’s real loss, either in the payment of compensation, or, more probably, in the loss of Christchurch’s greatest asset, New Zealand’s only airport of international standard.

The mischief of the Waimairi County Council’s attitude is not so much in its demand for a profit for its landowners as in the likelihood that, while a wrangle over compensation goes on, building will advance to the edge of the airport. Then any settlement will be too late. Cr. Austin’s idea was that the Lands Department, the Ministry of Works, the Railways Department, the Civil Aviation Administration, and the Christchurch City Council should be consulted. He could hardly expect any quick, favourable decision. Cr. Colligan went even further by his suggestion that “ the whole of Canterbury should “ pay its share of compensation ” If the rest of Canterbury is as ready and generous in this as the Waimairi County Council has been in contributing to the cost of Harewood, very little will be forthcoming in a long time. Such an approach is not much more helpful than the blunt declaration of Cr. E. R. Stead: “ I don’t think we should consider “ the aerodrome ”, Unfortunately, the buyers of sections in the locality he wants to subdivide would find it difficult to dispose of the noise and danger so summarily. If subdivision is allowed to proceed and some day an aircraft crashes in a thickly populated area, the Waimairi councillors may regret that they did not wholeheartedly support efforts to keep the airport approaches clear. The Government, which is considering legislation to ensure reasonably clear spaces round airfields, should not be deterred by the tenderness of the Waimairi County Council for the interests of some of its ratepayers. The efficient operation of the Harewood airport is too important to jeopardise by trying to exact tribute from the wide community it serves.