Chinese owner fights access to forest park
Officials and the Chinese owner of a Wairarapa sheep station are deadlocked over public access to a forest hut and tramping route.
The extraordinary dispute will now go to independent mediation – the first time this has ever happened.
If the row can’t be resolved the Overseas Investment Office can order the property to be sold.
Hong-Kong based Eric Chun Yu Wong bought the sprawling $3.3 million Kawakawa Station, at Cape Palliser, in 2015. The Overseas Investment Office approved the sale – which was signed off by National Government ministers – but imposed conditions around tramping access. Those conditions said the new owner must put in place access to the Aorangi Forest, as recommended by the Walking Access Commission.
The forest park is home to the Putangirua Pinnacles, the eerie earth pillars featured in scenes in the film Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
But Wong has rejected all the recommendations made by the commission, a Crown entity, in the past three years.
Curiously, he says granting access rights would impact on New Zealand’s reputation overseas.
The station has barred trampers from walking 7 kilometres up the Otakaha Stream to reach the 53-year-old hut which was built by the Forestry Service and is now maintained by the Department of Conservation. That is a two-hour walk and the ban means the six-bunk hut can now only be reached via a 10km, five-hour walk from the north, or an eight-hour tramp from the Pinnacles.
Kawakawa Station markets its own paid three-day walk, with accommodation in its own ‘‘historic’’ logging hut, which costs between $280 and $450.
‘‘Kawakawa Hut is located on public conservation land within Aorangi Forest Park, a popular destination for hunters and trampers located a short drive from Wellington ... [access would] open up the hut, and the Forest Park, to a whole range of new people, helping to bring nature and the outdoors to more of our community,’’ said Walking Access Commission chief executive Eric Pyle. ‘‘The commission ensures that any access we recommend is reasonable, and would not impose unfairly on overseas investors.’’
The commission opened negotiations after the purchase in June. In May 2016 it recommended public and cycling access, with dogs under control and unloaded firearms, from the main Cape Palliser road, alongside the left of the river, to the hut. Wong said the recommendations were ‘‘excessive and unacceptable’’. So officials made new proposals in September 2016.
The commission said it would work with the farm to secure access conditions – such as closure during lambing season – and developing signs and route markers.
Two months later Wong rejected the plans as ‘‘not reasonable’’.
He offered alternative access tracks but those didn’t give access to Aorangi Forest Park or the hut.
In November last year the Overseas Investment Office triggered a dispute resolution process.