Custodian’s house becomes a council issue

Press, 17 June 1982, Page 10

Custodian’s house becomes a council issue

A wall of the Victoria Park custodian's house is so rotten in places that weatherboards come away readily and fingers can be poked into the wood.

The house’s deteriorating condition, and whether to replace it on the same isolated Port Hills site, has become a Christchurch City Council issue.

Cr A. J. Graham, who opposes capital spending on park projects outside the city boundary, said the policy was "rather harsh" when applied to the need for a new custodian's house.

When proposed council budgets were cut this year, the $55,000 house replacement was a casualty. Since then, Cr Graham has inspected the house and seen its defects. His. inspection prompted a new move to have the money found from somewhere in the budget.

But some councillors, while admitting that the old house and former tearooms is beyond repair, question the need for a resident custodian to be in the park at all times. Cr Graham told the policy .and finance committee this week that it was unfair to expect the parks and recreation department to come up with the money for a new house because its budget was “already overtaxed and cut in many ways.”

The parks and recreation director, Mr N. W. Drain, told the council that tentative arrangements had been made to find the custodian another property, outside Victoria Park. That would solve the accommodation problem, but it

could create some security problems. Having a resident custodian has helped ward off vandalism. Thousands of dollars worth of fire-fighting and maintenance equipment are stored at the park. The custodian is a ranger for the native reserves stretching from the Sign of the Takahe to the Sign of the

Kiwi. Because of rotten wood and cracks, the custodian's house has a problem with ineffective heating. Some windows leak, and wind and rain come through the walls. Bad pilings at the front of the house, where the tearooms were until early this year, have caused a floor to sink.

In his report to the council, Mr Drain said that reports confirmed that the house was "far beyond economic repair, and that any money spent on it would be completely wasted." Mr Drain said yesterday that security of the park was "a management problem that w T e will deal with —we have alternatives."

The parks and recreation department has 19 parks serviced by resident custodians.

The reluctance of some councillors to consider capital spending on premises outside the city has prompted a report on possible regional funding for Summit Road reserves.

The report should be ready next month. The debate on the Victoria Park house centred on whether house replacement money should be sought from a tight budget that was only recently adopted.

It was "a fairly bad principle to be departing from an approved budget so early," said the Mayor, Sir Hamish Hay. He said that it was always possible that indirect taxation in the Government’s forthcoming Budget “could pay havoc with our estimates. Many items might cost

us more before the end of i the financial year." ' Cr Rex Lester said the i budget sub-committee had “accepted that the house was unacceptable," but it had not > been convinced of the need - for a caretaker to be in the > house at all times. I "That is the argument, not ■ the condition, of the house," 1 he said.