Heres one for the "legally oriented" tramping fraternity....who "owns "the huts on DOC land ?
As a background to this question one should take into account the fact that most of the existing huts ( except those built by DOC since its inception)were built and maintained by tramping , hunting clubs and private individuals.
DOC now consider these structures as "their assets"
I'll bite. This doesn't answer the question, but Section 95 ("Seizure and forfeiture of property") in the Reserves Act 1977 includes the following clause:
"(5) All buildings, signs, hoardings, or apparatus erected on any reserve without the consent in writing of the Minister or the administering body shall be deemed to be forfeited to the Crown or, as the case may be, the administering body, and shall be disposed of by the Commissioner or that body in such manner as he or it thinks fit."
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1977/0066/latest/whole.html#DLM444984
That might only apply to things built *after* something's declared a reserve, though... or maybe it means that anything that's *already* on land once it becomes a reserve is deemed forfeited to the Crown, unless the Minister says it isn't.
There are probably also mine-fields of details of agreements that people had with no-longer-existent entities like the Forestry Service. The Reserves Act isn't specific about structures on land when the land's acquired. It refers to the Public Works Act for rules on acquiring in, which are a combination of negotiation and usurping (depending on the circumstance), but only specifically refers to land and implied (I thought) that stuff on the land would be treated in the same way.
You'd know better than I would that some of these huts would be weird cases. My understanding in the Orongorongos is that a whole heap of the private batches are now on fixed term leases with DoC, which probably means DoC could require that people remove them when the leases are up. There would be similar situations with the privately owned ski lodges scattered around various national parks.
I remember reading in an obituary of Gottlieb Braun-Elwert that he took advantage of a clause that was only briefly present in law during the National Government of the 1990s, which let him build some new stuff on conservation land for one of his guiding businesses, and for it to have been interesting that must have been under much more attractive terms than concessionaires typically get.
once it's on doc land doc will do as they see fit, they've been disposing of huts left right and centre now for decades, it's taken a lot of protests by clubs to stop club built huts from being disposed of,
after cave creek doc issued a specification that all structures had to be built to and were hell bent on getting rid of anything that wasnt up to spec and couldnt be upgraded to specification easily. a lot of good bridges and huts disappeared out of paranoia of prosecution against doc if something went wrong with those structures even if they were the only structure that people had the benefit of using for miles around and in some cases offered a lot of safety.
doc eventually reversed some of their decisions to remove various huts and went about upgrading them....
My original question was posed because a recent newspaper article ran a statement from DOC saying they were seeking an input of effort/money from the Hutt Valley TC to maintain a (presumed) shortfall of money to maintain Powell Hut in the Tararua FP.
This is ironic.
When Powell Hut burned to the ground in May 1999 the HVTC had sensibly insured "their" asset.As a result the club forked out most of the money to re build the existing hut.
DOC are now saying the hut belongs to them and is "their" asset.
How can this be?
DOC neither paid any premiums for the hut , and currently dont insure "their" huts or "assets"
doc often try to play by their own set of rules.
they are well known for not treating third parties fairly who operate or have assets on their land...
to a certain extent they make the rules up as they go to suit themselves*
an entire book was written about a company wanting to build a private cafe at mt cook, it was a wrangle that went on for decades as DOC changed the goal poss continually and delayed endlessly,
the hermitage were given preferential treatment
now watch doc say if they can't fund powell hut they will bowl it, they might be trying to get out of any obligation to maintain the hut, they collect fees for it, but it theres too many overheads in it for them they may be looking to get out of being involved with it altogether.
Does the Hutt Valley TC collect any income from Powell Hut tickets and hut passes these days?
I cited that clause in the Reserves Act, but in reality I think there would be a whole lot more detail and agreements which determine who "owns" what and how the relationships work, and some of it might go back 50 to 100 years, long before DoC existed.
DoC's own website, for instance, says that Howletts Hut is 'owned and maintained by the Heretaunga Tramping Club', and if you plan to stay there then you're still meant to give donations to that club rather than use DoC hut tickets. http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-stay/backcountry-huts-by-region/hawkes-bay/hawkes-bay/howletts-hut/
doc provide cooking and heating in the hut
http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-stay/backcountry-huts-by-region/wairarapa/wairarapa/powell-hut/
Interestingly the opposite happened to Orange Hut in the Akatarawa Forest. The original hut was stuffed so the recreational groups that use the forest through a group called ARAC but mainly funded and labour supplied through the local 4wd clubs built the second Orange hut. Great fun getting building permits and resource consent. The hut had to have disabled access amongst other things which is why it has a wheelchair ramp that stops in the mud.
Wellington Regional council own that land and in their wisdom insured the hut which turned out to be a good decision as 3 years later some idiot accidentally poured several gallons of petrol around it and dropped a match. It meant the council had plenty of money to build the third Orange hut. Tararua 4wd club still had a major input into building this hut. Its now concrete so could be hard to burn.
No one was bought to account for this arson despite rumours as to who did it.
Walls concrete. Floor concrete. Roof Iron. Beds Iron. Only thing I reckon might burn is the laminate tabletop.
Someone tried
Cant understand some people just like the ones that take charcoal out of the woodburner to write about their close friends habits on the walls.
