Historic airport land sale found to be a Treaty breach says the Crown

• Author: David Haxton
• Published date: 22 June 2022
• Publication title: Kapiti News

The Crown, using the power of the Public Works Act, took the land from various owners, in 1939 for an airport during World War II. But there was a stipulation in the Public Works Act that any land surplus to airport requirements would be offered back to the original owners of the land

In 1995 the Crown sold the airport land to a private company and by 1999 the land, in what is now Avion Tce, was sold and homes built.

The Crown’s position, at the time, was “that the sale of the land was determined, by the airport company, to be exempt from section 40 of the Public Works Act offer back requirement because it ‘would be impractical, unreasonable, or unfair’ to offer the land back to the former owners or their successors”, said a finding by the Waitangi Tribunal.

“The Crown took appropriate steps to ensure, to the extent it could, that the airport company was complying, or had complied, with its s40 obligations,” it said in relation to the Avion Tce sale.

But a few years ago the Crown had reconsidered its position on the interpretation of the Public Works Act and considered the chief executive of Land Information New Zealand was responsible for complying with the offer-back provisions of the act...