Kawhatau Base road access closed

When we found out quite a while afterwards what the bush block sold for a group of us have been kicking ourselves for not buying it.

Wilderness had a feature (within the last year?) about Ruahine access rights not so long ago. At least one of the owners was complaining that they'd been trying for some time to formalise access arrangements, but local DOC staff simply weren't interested or were too disorganised or underresourced to make it work. Assuming it's true it seems like an opportunity wasted.

I think that's not true at all. The Ruahine users group is very active and liaise with the local doc rangers all the time. If there was an opportunity to lock in an access point it wouldn't be missed. If only because of the users groups persistence.

I couldn't say how correct it is. The source most likely represents only one side of the problem, but it looks like the article is online: https://www.wildernessmag.co.nz/none-shall-pass/ ======= From Wilderness March 2016: Around four years ago, the owners decided to subdivide and sell. DOC was given the chance to buy the crucial block of land, either to add it to the conservation estate, or to secure a public right of way before on-selling. Instead, says previous owner Alan Rennie, the department “considered the land of low value to them”. The department sat idle while a private landowner bought the property and subsequently denied public access to Kawhatau Base. “I don’t think we’ll get road access to Kawhatau Base again unless that portion of land comes onto the market,” believes DOC’s former conservation services manager at Palmerston North, Rod Smillie. Smillie wasn’t with DOC when the sale took place, but had been heavily involved with negotiations until the end of 2015. “I’m a bit disappointed that consent to subdivide didn’t take into consideration that access. It was very popular; people loved going there – it was safe and it gave access to a number of destinations.” The new landowner, who wishes to remain anonymous due to sensitivities surrounding his work in the police force, says the public has DOC to blame for the lack of access. He says he gave the department an offer once he’d bought the property which would have allowed tramper access. “What I proposed was very fair and reasonable,” he says. “I proposed they lease me the Kawhatau Base for $1 a year and we would maintain everything except replacement of the roofing iron and the generator. “DOC staff would have unlimited access through my place from Monday to Friday and they’d have free use of the building from Monday to Thursday. Tramping clubs, school groups, university groups, police SAR and LandSAR could all access and use the facility for $50 a night – the same as DOC had charged.” The landowner says DOC contacted him a few weeks after he’d made the offer to say they couldn’t accept because it didn’t include hunters. “I said I’d sold a house to buy this place for hunting – why would I allow hunters through when they have access up river? I believe I was being reasonably accommodating – but DOC have a very bullish attitude.” He says he won’t grant access to trampers because DOC didn’t accept his offer. Concerns that this problem may arise surfaced more than 30 years ago, says Rod Smillie. He recalls speaking to a former NZFS senior ranger who had prepared all the paperwork, complete with agreement from the landowner, that legal access should be granted from the road to Kawhatau Base. “He sent the paperwork off to headquarters in Wellington,” explains Smillie, “but then there was a restructure in the Forest Service and all that paperwork got lost. “He tried to find it and get it signed off, but the whole issue got put on the backburner because there were no access problems at the time, so there was no motivation to seal the deal.” =====

That is not entirely correct. Access was blocked before the section was sold. There was no access whilst it was on the market. The rumour was that this was to make the 'bush block' more attractive to buyers after a private hunting block. Which I guess it was. It is unbelievable that a subdivision was allowed that did not grant access to the neighbouring land. And good on DOC for not giving in to the 'compromise' blocking hunting access. Yes - we all suffer but we can't enter into agreements allowing landowners to lock up the public estate as their own private fiefdoms. And to profit from it. A partial solution seems simple though: survey & mark the 6' track to the park boundary. Force the landowner to fence it off at their own expense (it's a legal road). And cut the track up the ridge to join the Colenso track. Not a perfect solution for visitors to Kawatau Base but restores access to the park and shows the farm owner that if he wants to play it to the letter of the law, then so can we.

Actually - I take that suggestion back. Take a leaf of of CODC's book for landowners trying to play that game. Public Works Act, anyone? http://i.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/67771716/public-access-process-looms-for-mead-rd-in-lake-hawea

I think the law's inconsistent around this. If it were private property being blocked off, the Property Law Act has an entire sub-part about land-locked land. http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2007/0091/latest/whole.html#DLM969578 It enables owner or occupier of landlocked land to apply to court for an order that grants reasonable access to the land over neighbouring properties "to enable the owner or occupier of the land to use and enjoy the land for any purpose for which it may be used...". "Landlocked land" is defined as "land to which there is no reasonable access". "Land" is defined as "includes all estates and interests, whether freehold or chattel, in real property". As far as I can find there's no equivalent mechanism in law to apply to courts to grant reasonable access to public land in comparable situations of inaccessibility. If there were, I'd expect many of the access issues would have been resolved a long time ago.