Consortium to ‘lease’ land at Aramoana

Press, 18 March 1981, Page 6

Consortium to ‘lease’ land at Aramoana

PA Dunedin South Pacific Aluminium, Ltd, will become the legal tenant of most of the land it wants at Aramoana owned by the Otago Harbour Beard, after a special meeting of the board held in committee yesterday. The smelter consortium has been given a three-month lease of the land, excluding Aramoana Village, to give it “status'* when it makes its application to the Government under the National Development Act. The lease has been agreed at no charge for rent to the consortium, and technically at least it means the consortium is the legal occupier of the land, and could, if it wished and followed the provisions of the Trespass Act, prevent anyone from going on to the land without authority. What occurred at yesterday’s meeting cannot be reported because it was all held in committee. After the special meeting, the board’s chairman, Mr R. M. Hall, said:

“AU I can say, is that the sole business of the meeting was to consider drafts ol agreements in our negotiations with ,the (consortium for the harbotsr works to be affected, and! the eventual leasing of the land)” Mr Hall said there was no final agreement 1 for the consortium to lease the' site at this stage as the board was still “in the prctoess qf delicate negotiation.' “The terms of the .temporary lease’will become public under the Planning Act, as I understand it —after 21 days from when the Order-in, Council has been'made. It will come out in due course,” Mr Hall said. • •■ ' “The purpose of the lease is to give the company the status it feels is necessary in promoting its application under the National Development Act. Unless it is tenant or has some rights to the land, its application is pothetical one.” He confirmed that no rent was being charged for the temporary lease 'because, it was “purely for investigating and planning.”