No council funds for action committee

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 6

No council funds for action committee

The Redwood Action Com-1 mittee will not get any money from the Waimairi. County Council to help defray costs of the hearings into the pro!posed site or the Northern (Refuse Transfer Station. I Cr T. W. Rice failed last (evening to persuade councillors of the finance and bylaws committee that the council had a “moral obliga-i tion” to subsidise a propor-i tion of the action committee’s: costs in the second hearing,: because the original hearing! was not in accordance with the Town and Country Planning Act. 1977. Councillors and council staff had accepted that the; Metropolitan Refuse Committee had the legal right to designate land for the transfer station, he said. The Redwood residents had expected to pay heavily for their objections to the site, but they had not expected to have to meet the costs of a! second hearing because the! first had been declared null! and void, and not in accor-[ dance with the Town and; Country Planning Act. Cr Hazel Tait said that the; council had already incurred tremendous expense. She suggested that the council petition the Government to set up a fund to help people who faced costly hearing bills. This suggestion was refer-'

| red to the council’s town [planning committee. I If the residents had any quarrel it was with the Metropolitan Refuse Committee, said Mr D. B. Rich. But this was not a special situation. It would create a precedent if the council agreed to pay the costs of a hearing to an objector in advance. i There was no suggestion that the Metropolitan-Refuse Committee was at fault, he said.

The suggestion that the council pay “is so. silly that it doesn’t really bear close examination at all.” It was through the efforts of the Redwood Action Committee that the legality of the designation had been questioned. It was not the action committee’s fault that the refuse committee did not meet the. requirements of the act, said Cr A. A. Adcock. Cr E. L. Bonisch said that the second hearing need not be so lengthy, as the hearing committee had been thorough in its deliberations and in hearing the submissions. However, if there was to be any action it should be a civil action in the courts between the Redwood Action Committee and the Metropolitan Refuse Committee.

The Redwood Action Committee did not want payment in advance, said Cr Rice. It was as concerned as the

council about the cost of the hearings. The council had accepted an illegal designation which it should not have accepted in the first place. The committee recommended that the council lend the Redwood Scout Group $lO,OOO for building, but only after Cr Rice had received assurances that money borrowed from the Papanui Riding Account be paid back first. The scout group has invested $20,000 in building a new den, but does not have enough money to finish it. The committee recommended that, because the den would also be available for other community activties, the group be lent the money at 6.25 per cent, with a repayment period of five years. Mr J. Russ has been nominated as the riding member for the Fendalton Ward, to fill the vacancy left by Mr I. G. Lyons, who has shifted from the district. Six nominations were received. Mr Russ, the deputy principal at Burnside High School, had been accepted because of his availability, experience, and his intention not to stand in the October elections. The committee felt that this would not give an advantage to a candidate in the 1980 elections.