LAWRENCE GULLERY
Hastings will challenge New Zealand Railways Corporation, Ontrack, over its move to increase charges on land occupied by councils throughout New Zealand.
The Hastings District Council last week agreed it had no choice but to pay nearly $20,000 Ontrack had demanded for use of railway corridor land, although the council
believed that was not a fair figure.
The council's operations manager Kevin Deacon's report to the council's works committee said, however, the council was making only about $17,000 from carparks on railway land.
Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule will take the council's case to Local Government New Zealand and ask the national body to intervene as there could be other councils that Ontrack was trying to "pick off" one by one.
In May, Ontrack wrote to the Hastings council and said if it did not pay up, its lease would be terminated and a trespass notice issued.
The council had 67 car park spaces partially on Ontrack's rail corridor in the central business district, but 13 of those, on Russell Street, were time-limited and did not generate income.
Also at risk, however, was the Hastings Town Clock and other landscape improvements made to land legally owned by the railway corporation.
The latest Heritage Trail booklet, suggested, however, that the clock tower was built on land permanently leased from the Railways Department in 1934.
The council's operations manager, Kevin Deacon, said Ontrack was not willing to sell the land to the council, so a lease was the only option.
"In today's world of user pays and in the absence if no prior agreement with the railways corporation to develop carparks on their land, it seems justified some form of recompense be made by the council for the right to occupy the land," Mr Deacon said in his report to the council.
The council had instructed officers to pay Ontrack the outstanding amount of $19,268 to settle the lease agreement.
It also decided to sign a new lease agreement with Ontrack, providing termination of the lease was reduced by three months and arbitration provisions be included in the lease.
