North Shore leaves soil issue with buyer

North Shore City Council has swerved away from copying its Waitakere neighbour's hardline stance of tagging land information memorandum (LIM) reports with warnings about possible soil contamination.

Waitakere City tags LIMs when sites are known to have been used for horticulture.

But North Shore decided yesterday to advise people seeking a LIM report for anywhere in the city to do their own detective work on whether a property could be contaminated with horticultural spray residues.

Senior environmental policy adviser Phil Reid said legal opinion was that the council has the discretion to decide whether to tag LIMS.

Although spray residues may remain across large parts of the city, he said, there were questions as to whether they could be accurately pinpointed.

North Shore's housing subdivisions came after the Harbour Bridge opened, and earthmoving machinery was available to extensively modify the land. It was difficult to know from records whether the same soil had been put back on the sections or redistributed elsewhere in the city. It was unknown how land had changed by landscaping or construction work between its use as a market garden and a home or a factory.

Mr Reid said the council was working on giving an accurate representation of property boundaries over the top of the aerial photographs from the mid 1990s. It was hoped this would be done by August.

The council note will say: "Attention should be given to land-based hazards, including land instability, soil contamination, dumping and previous activities that may be unknown to council that could affect the current or your intended use of the site."

People can search the council's file on that property for a fee of between $20 and $32, or go to the council website.

The decision to note every LIM report was criticised by councillor Margaret Miles at the management committee yesterday.

"I feel it's going to be another cost to people and they will be cross about getting a comment like this on their LIM.

"People will say we have paid for this LIM so why should we pay more for a property file search?"

Auckland City Council decided in December not to say whether a site was previously used for horticulture.

Manukau City clean environment manager Mohammed Hassan is presenting a report on contaminated soil sites to the council next month.