The Press FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1976. Buying land for motorways

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34106, 19 March 1976, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1976. Buying land for motorways

The Christchurch City Council cannot find the money 1 needs to buy properties designated for motorways nhen the owners want to sell. This difficulty has prompted some councillors to suggest that the motorway designations should be lifted Their opinion teems attractive Construction of certain sections of motorway has been deferred for nany years and it teems unreasonable either to restrict unduly the joportunities of owners to do what they want with lheir properties or to require the City Council _to spend considerable sums immediately when the land mav not be needed for many years. But lifting the designation on most of the properties would be a short-sighted solution to what is an admittedly difficult problem. The designation of a property for conversion to a motorway use is less onerous to owners now than it once was. In 1974 the Ministry of Works and the council eased restrictions on improvements which owners might make to designated properties and on the manner in which they could dispose of them. Even so. a few instances of genuine hardship, when owners must sell but cannot make a satisfactory private sale because of the designation, will continue to arise each year. But lifting the designation will not make private sales any easier when a prospective buyer of a property knows that the designation will almost certainly be re-applied later. If he does not know this, pretending that it is not so amounts to a deception as long as the roading plans remain on the shelf. Buyers of such properties would be foolish to count on the land's never being needed for public purposes. Even if the motorways arc never built in the form now envisaged, some land will almost certainly be needed if the city is to have an adequate transport system, whether for general road improvements, parking, bus lanes or cycle routes. The problem for both buyers and sellers lies not so much in the effect on the market price, but in the eventual inconvenience to the buyer when the land is required. This prospect of inconvenience is likely to discount the attractiveness of a property to most though not all. house buyers. If owners cannot sell at a fair price in the meantime, the council has little alternative but to buy the properties. Some of them, at least, will be suited to letting, and by that means the council is providing a sendee. A public assurance that the properties will not be wanted for a specified number of years might assist sellers and other buyers. That course would be better than abandoning, or appearing to abandon, a long-term plan. The Government was warned when it imposed a freeze on local body loans that exceptions might have to be made. Allowing the Christchurch City Council to raise money to purchase motorway properties to prevent genuine hardship might be a justifiable exception Values The resignation of Mr Reginald Clough from the leadership of the Values Party is an occasion to note the contribution made by this minor party to New Zealand politics in the short span of four years. Only in the fantasies of its most enthusiastic supporters has the party been considered likely to win a Parliamentary seat. Yet its influence on the policies of the mam parties has been more marked than that achieved in more than 20 years by Social Credit, which had Parliamentary representation for one session. Mr Clough, like his predecessor. Mr Tony Brunt, is an idealist. If, like most idealists, he is disappointed that he has failed to achieve more, he can still reflect that both major parties are now more firmly pledged to the principle that the New Zealand environment—social as well as physical—must be protected. New Zealand politics will be the poorer if a person as able and enthusiastic as Mr Cloush cannot be found to succeed him as leader of the Values Party.