Council split on Wilkes affair

Press, 17 December 1976, Page 1

Council split on Wilkes affair

Staff reporter

Westport The Buller County Council should “ease up” on the Owen Wilkes affair, Cr H. W. Williams told the council meeting on Wednesday. The council was considering what action it would take if Mr Wilkes did not pay the $2OOO bill from the council for demolishing his home at Punakaiki. It was decided to ask the Commissioner of Crown Lands to register a charge against the title of the 23-hectare block of land at Punakaiki in which Mr Wilkes has a half-share. A decision on the timelimit for payment of the $2OOO, before the council applies to the court for sale of the land to settle the debt, will be made at the council meeting in January. However, the council says that the sale of the land will be a last resort. In the meantime it will write to Mr Wilkes, who is at the Oslo Peace Research Institute, in Norway, on a three-year scholarship, sending him an account for the demolition.

It was while the council was discussing the time

limit that Cr Williams suggested that it “ease up.” “We’ve gone far enough,” he said. “The matter is completely out of hand.”

He suggested that the council give Mr Wilkes up to 20 years to meet the debt.

However, the County Clerk (Mr R. M. Elley) said that Cr Williams was implying that the council had acted wrongly. This was not the case, he said. The county “had a duty to uphold the regulations.” Cr Williams: That is your opinion. The county chairman (Mr W. J. Mumm) said that the council had to act in the Wilkes affair. If it did not, other illegal and sub-standard buildings “would be popping up all over the county.” Mr Mumm reported on a meeting which he and Crs Williams and W. J. Caims had had with members of the Katajuta and Pahautane farms on December 6. (Katajuta is better known as the Fox River commune, a long-established West Coast commune. It has been a thorn in the side of the council almost

since its inception—on matters ranging from eviction orders to alleged council despoliation of the scenic coast road from Greymouth to Westport.) As a result of talks, the council agreed to relax its requirements for the Katajuta Farm, provided the area was cleaned up, and it agreed to give a year’s extension for the completion of the Smith house. Mr Mumm said the outcome of the meeting was satisfactory, and councillors should follow it up with others.

However, Cr G. Meadows was sceptical of the sincerity of the Katajuta group. Mr Mumm had been “taken for a ride,” he said. Cr W. D. Rhind wanted to know how much time the council had wasted on Katajuta Farm. “They have backed down on every agreement,” he said. Cr Williams said that in the latest change of use application the Katajuta group had completed about two-thirds of the council’s requirements. Mr Mumm said the people there were left in no doubt that the council had one law for everyone.