Pakowhai resident Geoff Downer organised a protest at the Hastings District Council chambers on Wednesday. Photo / Warren Buckland.
Pakowhai resident Geoff Downer organised a protest at the Hastings District Council chambers on Wednesday. Photo / Warren Buckland.
Naren Soni’s heart sank when he learned his home and business had been zoned Category 3.
The owner of the Pakowhai Store received a letter last week, signed by Hastings District Council (HDC) chief executive Nigel Bickle and interim Hawke’s Bay Regional Council chief executive Bill Bayfield, informing him hisclassification had changed from Category 2A to 3.
Eleven hours later, an unsigned email arrived from HDC telling Soni the original letter had been sent in error. No decision had been made on land categories and HDC regretted the confusion.
Soni was one of 34 property owners sent the incorrect land classification information by HDC, several of whom took their concerns to the council’s steps on Wednesday.
Bickle and Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst met the crowd of about 50, who came with a symbolic wheelbarrow of silt, wanting a personal apology from the council.
“We get the letter and my wife was crying,” Soni said. “Then, after 11 hours, we get another letter and my 7-year-old kid is crying and we are all crying all night and into the next day.
“It’s a community store. I want to restart, I have [New Zealand] residence, but Category 3 is no good.”
Bickle spent 90 minutes on Wednesday listening to the individual concerns of residents and, along with Hazlehurst, committed to HDC visiting each affected property owner individually to explain why they had received letters advising them they would not be able to rebuild their homes or businesses.
“We acknowledge that the letters arrived in an environment where people are highly stressed and looking for certainty,” Bickle told Hawke’s Bay Today.
Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst, left, and council chief executive Nigel Bickle listened to protesters' complaints on Wednesday. Photo / Warren Buckland
Pakowhai resident Geoff Downer organised Wednesday’s protest. On behalf of those present, he wanted to know if the categorisation letters had actually been sent in error, as HDC said in its email of apology.
Because the assumption, Downer said, was that the categories had been changed and the only issue was that HDC jumped the gun.
“Yes, they will [think that],” said Bickle.
“But the reality is that the commitment we’d made a few days prior to us sending those letters in error, through the community and through [Pakowhai community leader] Troy Duncan, was that before we make any decisions we would front up in the community and we will front up with the engineers and we will have a further conversation before any decisions are made and that hasn’t happened.
“Equally, and this is the world we’re living in, people are saying would you also hurry up and get on with it and make a call.
“So we have to do that as well and accept that this isn’t going to land universally.”
Hastings District Council chief executive Nigel Bickle addresses the crowd. Photo / Warren Buckland.
Downer’s frustration is the process. He estimates 250 volunteers helped clean up his lifestyle block and garden art business, which is in Category 2A, but says he’s never once had a visit from a Hastings council staff member.
