Paper roads and one council’s plans for them.

[Howie]

I was surfing around the Internet looking for some out of the way roads and tracks for a up coming ride and came across this interesting article on what the Tararua District Council is going to try and do with some of the paper roads in their area. Briefly the council is going to try and sell some of them off to the farmers whose land they cross. Here is the link to the article. http://www.stuff.co.nz/4697571a3600.html

So not only is the Government looking at changing the Access rights, but we now have at least one Council looking at selling some of them off.

[cooneyr]

The paper road land is crown land so in theory if the councils are going to sell of any paper roads they will need to consult with the community prior to doing so. This means that we should really be watching the council web sites for notification of the consultation processes.

Secondly unless a paper road is well used at the moment and the farmers want to prevent access, I really cant see the farmers being interested in paying $250,000/km (from the article) for land they already use? Am I missing something here?

Cheers R

[marks]

I was surfing around the Internet looking for some out of the way roads and tracks for a up coming ride

so did you find any interesting local rides that aren't already local knowledge?????

[warewolf]

1300km of roads to be discovered in Tararua district!

"Over time many farmers have assumed the rights to these roads even though legally they aren't theirs at all. There will be people who will get bent out of shape over this, but it is a good time for people to become better informed over what is actually theirs and what is not."
...
The public has the right to use the roads without hindrance and it is illegal to place gates or fences across them.

Classic!!

[Howie]

The paper road land is crown land so in theory if the councils are going to sell of any paper roads they will need to consult with the community prior to doing so. This means that we should really be watching the council web sites for notification of the consultation processes.

Secondly unless a paper road is well used at the moment and the farmers want to prevent access, I really cant see the farmers being interested in paying $250,000/km (from the article) for land they already use? Am I missing something here?

Cheers R

Yep it is about all we can do, and I agree that I can't see many farmers paying $250,000/km

so did you find any interesting local rides that aren't already local knowledge?????

Not yet but it is always interesting to keep an eye open for new ones, probably any new ones would involve contacting the property owners for permission, and this isn't the right time of year(lambing season)

1300km of roads to be discovered in Tararua district!

Classic!!

Yep would be great if we could access them all!!!

[OV Lander]

I really cant see the farmers being interested in paying $250,000/km (from the article) for land they already use?

Are you familiar with the Johnsons Road case in Upper Hutt? Developer owned land on both sides of the paper road, council wanted shot of road and associated liabilities. Council attempted to transfer ownership of land to developer who had already sold the 'sections' it ran through.

Developer ends up with 12+ $500k sections. Do you still think $250k is a lot to pay? Not a bad return on investment!

Was a huge and lengthy case in the Environment court. Council was blocked from selling the land, but it cost us (4WD club plus other local recreational clubs) over $27k to protect it.

The case has become a landmark case in that recreational use/value of paper roads is now recognised in the courts as being of greater value than financial values to local councils.

The outcome is that if recreational users can prove and demonstrate regular use of the paper road concerned, then they will have a challenge closing it down - this includes selling it.

So the road is blocked hey? You have a legal right to access the road and can cut fences etc so long as: it is on the road reserve; you cause a minimum of damage required to access the road; you reinstate the fence gate to a functional level after you have passed through. The farmers have now right to prevent your access by either threats/intimidation or physical means such as gates and fences. You do however, have an obligation to ensure no harm comes to stock and minimum damage to crops.

What to do?

Find the roads, ride the roads, and record the trips (trip adverts, photos, reports etc. If you are serious about preventing closures then using Coonyers web site to maximise the knowledge of these routes should help us get more people out there.

Talk to local 4WD and horse riding clubs to find routes and co-ordinate trips to ensure that as many routes as possible are used as frequently as possible.

or you could let them bully us and watch the tracks disappear!

Anyone fancy a ride?

[OV Lander]

The full environment court judgement is available at:
http://www.publicaccessnewzealand.co...sons_road.html

but here are some important highlights....

Introduction
[1] Johnsons Road extends from Whitemans Valley over a ridge into Moores Valley, Wainuiomata. The road was surveyed and vested in the local authority in the 1870s, but most of it has never been formed or used as road. The Upper Hutt City Council, supported by the owners of the land through which it passes, now proposes that the unformed section of the road in its district be stopped as road, and the land sold to the adjoining landowners. The Council's case is that the road is impassable in its present state, it will never be required as road, it allows access to private lands by unwanted intruders, and the Council does not want responsibility for safety of people using it.

[20] The opponents submitted that the issue is the public benefit of continuing or stopping the road, not any private benefit of doing so. 5) In particular, their counsel submitted that Planning Tribunal decisions that there is no requirement on local authorities to keep roads open for recreational use 6) should no longer be followed, having been based on an earlier version of clause 6. Counsel submitted that the recent Environment Court decision in Re application by Ruapehu District Council 7) is in keeping with the current version of clause 6, and should be followed.

[48] A considerable amount of evidence was directed to this issue, but it is not necessary to report it in detail. There was evidence of recreational users passing along what they understood to have been Johnsons Road. In nearly all cases they had not reliably established the route of the road, and there were reasons for doubting that the routes they had taken had passed entirely along it.

Consideration
[82] A public road, even one that is unformed, may be an asset. It would be difficult to replace. If a public road is valued by the public, or sections of it, for use within the scope of the purpose of a public road, that value deserves to be weighed against whatever cause is shown for stopping it as road and disposing of the land.

[83] m respect of the section of Johnsons Road in question, the Council's case was that the road is impassable, is not required for road now, and will not be in the future. We have found that although in its present state the road is impassable by ordinary traffic, it is passable by some users, and could readily be made passable by more members of the public if the Council decides to carry out minor works to remove impediments to passage. We have also found that the section in question is required now as public road by some members of the public for use for recreational purposes. That is likely to continue in future.

[84] We accept that the existence of the road through the Woodhill land is an impediment to the proposed subdivision of it. However the road was surveyed some 130 years ago, long before the present owners of the land acquired it; and those responsible for designing the subdivision were not entitled to assume that the road would necessarily be stopped. Although the owners of blocks of land to which access might be obtained from this section of public road would benefit if it is stopped, that would be a consequential benefit rather than a substantial ground for disposing of this public asset.

[85] We do not consider that the Council's responsibility for the safety of users of public assets under its control provides an independent ground for disposing of this asset.

[86] It is within the jurisdiction of the High Court, not that of the Environment Court, to decide whether the Council's proposal to stop the section of road was unlawful by contravening the principle that public powers are not to be exercised to benefit private interests. However our finding that the proposal contravened that principle is a matter that the Environment Court is entitled to take into account in deciding whether to confirm, modify or reverse the Council's decision. Without determining that the proposal was unlawful on that ground, we take into account in making our judgement that the Council's decision was made to benefit private interests. We also take into account that the proposed stopping would leave landlocked the remainder of the unformed section of this public road that lies within the Hutt City district.

[87] In short, it is our judgement that there is a public need for this section of road, and a public benefit from it continuing to have the status as public road; and that adequate cause has not been made out for stopping it.

Determination
[88] Having considered the district plan, the plan of the section of road proposed to be stopped, the Council's explanation, and the objections made by the parties who appeared before the Court, for those reasons this Court reverses the decision of the Council to disallow the objections and stop the unformed section of Johnsons Road in the Upper Hutt City district.


Find it, Ride it, Record it!

[Ixion]

See here for another road saved from the greedy, and reference to the court case to preserve it.
I'm always up to reclaim our heritage in the northern half of the island.

[The Pastor]

See here for another road saved from the greedy, and reference to the court case to preserve it.
I'm always up to reclaim our heritage in the northern half of the island.

Ilove paper roads, ixion when i finally paint my bike (its coming along), want to go ruin the paint job on some nice gravel roads north of auckland one weekend?

[Ixion]

There aren't many good gravel roads north of Auckland now. The middle road has a good gravel section, and there is good gravel around Goat Island.

Other than that the buggers have sealed it all. Except of course for the REALLY good roads, which the bloody forestry companies have stolen.

Gravel roads are not paper roads.

[cooneyr]

Are you familiar with the Johnsons Road case in Upper Hutt? Developer owned land on both sides of the paper road, council wanted shot of road and associated liabilities. Council attempted to transfer ownership of land to developer who had already sold the 'sections' it ran through........

I have heard of that case but I didn't know the details of why it ended up in the Environment Court. Interesting case none the less.

I was more thinking of the situation such as Limestone Road near Cheviot in North Canterbury which we frequent. It is a grass road through paddocks hence it is grazed as part of the normal farm operations. As I mentioned I really cant see farmers wanting to pay for land that they currently use.

In the situation where a developer wants the land, to develop it, then its a completely different story.

People are most welcome to ride paper roads and send details to me to put on my site as a way of ensuring that the roads are used. You dont even need a GPS to record the route if you can provide me with enough information I'll probably be able to find the details on a map somewhere.

Guess I'd better do some more work on the website

Cheers R

[Skinny_Birdman]

So the road is blocked hey? You have a legal right to access the road and can cut fences etc so long as: it is on the road reserve; you cause a minimum of damage required to access the road; you reinstate the fence gate to a functional level after you have passed through. The farmers have now right to prevent your access by either threats/intimidation or physical means such as gates and fences. You do however, have an obligation to ensure no harm comes to stock and minimum damage to crops.

What to do?

Find the roads, ride the roads, and record the trips (trip adverts, photos, reports etc. If you are serious about preventing closures then using Coonyers web site to maximise the knowledge of these routes should help us get more people out there.

While I agree in principle with most of what Mr OV Lander says, a word of caution. As I have mentioned once before in these realms, the boundaries of paper roads are often poorly defined. This, combined with the errors inherent in handheld GPS receivers mean that it is often impossible to know whether you are on the paper road (and whether the track follows the legal road) or on private land (Trespassing). If you go cutting fences across private land, no matter how carefully you do so, you will soon find yourself in all kinds of sh**.
I am personally of the opinion that we should try and foster good relations with landowners over whose land paper roads run, and in this way we may get to ride tracks that aren't road at all. If we traverse paper roads without notifying owners, especially if we cut through fences etc, aren't we presenting ourselves (bikers and 4 wheel drivers) as irresponsible hoons, whether we are within our legal rights or not? I agree though, that in the case of money hungry developers we have less to lose in terms of good will, and that it may become necessary to go to greater lengths to secure legal access. All I am saying is that we should try diplomacy first. Hey, it works for certain major superpowers, right?

I was more thinking of the situation such as Limestone Road near Cheviot in North Canterbury which we frequent. It is a grass road through paddocks hence it is grazed as part of the normal farm operations. As I mentioned I really cant see farmers wanting to pay for land that they currently use.

In the situation where a developer wants the land, to develop it, then its a completely different story.

That's the way I see the situation more frequently in Canterbury, at least. However, we should still keep our eye on the local government notices in the paper, and I'll try not to survey too many paper roads off...