Land review process confusing – advocate

The Government’s review process for earthquake-damaged land has been labelled confusing for people wanting their land zoning checked.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) last week said an advisory group would consider requests from insured residential property owners who wanted to query their land zoning after the quakes.

Until then, the Government’s response to those seeking a review was that it would deal with the issue once all white and orange-zoned land had been reclassified.

Canterbury Community Earthquake Recovery Network spokeswoman Leanne Curtis said the way the review process was announced was misleading.

‘‘The bit that hasn’t been communicated very clearly is that this review is not about changing your technical category (TC); it’s about going red to green or green to red. That bit has not been clear. We’ve fed that back to Cera, that the communication around that was confusing.’’

More than 300 property owners had asked for a review since the process was announced, joining the 550 who had applied over the past year.

Seventeen of those had requested their TC within their green zoning be changed, which cannot be done.

Cera chief executive Roger Sutton clarified the scope of the reviews yesterday.

The lack of certainty over when and how the review process would work was probably behind the late rush of applications, Curtis said.

Labour earthquake recovery spokeswoman Lianne Dalziel said residents deserved better zoning explanations. ‘‘I’m not surprised [by the numbers]. ‘‘I’ve been raising this issue with the Government for months,’’ she said.

‘‘I have written to them so many times saying there are people on the borderline of red zones who have never had the decision-making properly communicated to them.’’

Flat-land property owners have until June 30 to query their zoning.

A similar process will be available to hill residents, but only after remaining Port Hills white-zone properties are reclassified.