Property firm’s $4m claim rejected
A property company has failed in a second attempt to claim $4.2 million compensation from selling two commercial properties in Petone for the yet-to-bebuilt Petone to Grenada link road.
Casata Ltd said announcement of the project in 2014 cast a ‘‘shadow’’ over two properties it owned in Pito-One Rd, Petone, limiting its prospects for improving the return on its investment.
In 2017 it sold the properties, under the Public Works Act, for market value eventually agreed at $6,655,000.
But Casata said it lost the opportunity to sell the properties in 2014 and use that money, plus some borrowed money, to reinvest in another property that it could rent out and benefit from a rise in property values.
It claimed $4.2m in a case against the Minister of Land Information, a recent judgment from the High Court at Wellington said.
The minister oversees land purchases for public works.
Casata bought the two sections in 1993 from New Zealand Railways, subject to longterm ground lease to what is now called Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.
The larger section had been leased for a car yard but by 2014 that had ended and an earthquake-prone building on it had to be demolished, Justice Rebecca Edwards said.
Casata demolished the building and obtained resource consent for a large commercial building on the site.
The smaller section had failed to sell during two spells on the market.
Casata made a claim to the Land Valuation Tribunal but the tribunal was unconvinced the basis for Casata’s claimed loss was anything but ‘‘hypothetical’’.
Justice Edwards agreed.
The evidence fell well short of showing that the ‘‘shadow’’ of the planned public works acquisition caused the loss claimed.
In 2018, Waka Kotahi said the plan was revised and the road may not proceed in the form proposed.