NEW YORK: Errol Hunter doubts he will live long enough to see a resolution to the long-running Taylors Mistake bach dispute.
The 63-year-old Christchurch man has been staying at his family’s Taylors Mistake bach each year since he was born.
The bach’s future has been uncertain for almost as long as he can remember.
“I don’t stress about it because I know it’s going to go on.”
The bach owners have been in dispute with the Christchurch City Council over their future for years and negotiations over potential leases are continuing, but provisions in the Christchurch Replacement District Plan could see some of those bach owners forced to leave for good.
In the proposed plan, the council said the area was subject to an “intolerable risk to life-safety from potential cliff collapse” or rockfall.
In a submission to the plan, the Taylors Mistake Association Land Company, which represents about 40 bach owners, said it did not believe the council should be attempting to protect people from these “always known” risks.
The risk of rockfall, tsunami, coastal erosion, sea-level rise and intense rain had always been part of the challenge and “a large part of the charm” of the area, it said.
The owners did not agree there was any increased risk to life-safety post-quakes in the area, based on evidence in a Canterbury University study that estimated the return period of the shaking experienced in the Port Hills to be every 7000 to 8000 years.
Hunter said there was no damage to his bach in all the earthquakes apart from things falling off the shelves.
“I will be gutted [if I have to move]… most days I wake up and think what a lucky bugger I am.”
That is the way boomers think and treat risk…