Storm in a Teacup

For most properties the issue of access shouldn't be a concern... you drive up the driveway. Easy.

In rural areas, tracks, gates, fences, sheds, yards... all these things are added over time and they are not necessarily in the right place, or even not allowed to be there at all.

The property we're building on is 25 hectares of one paddock and it is surrounded on 3 sides by Lowburn Station (crown owned but leasehold) and the 4th side by the road up to the main farm. There is a gate into the paddock, and a track to connect the Lowburn Curling Club to the Curling Dam, which is situated in the corner of the paddock. Sound complicated? ... Well it's about to become more of a handful.

Apparently, power is important when building a house (unless of course we decide to go fully solar and wind powered... mmmm... not sure about that). Anyway, to get power to the paddock is proving to be a bit of a problem, because the side of the road between the road and the fence is actually crown land. The Curling Club has access but only as long as Lowburn Station remains as crown land, if it was to be sold privately then the access would be gone, and the gate into the paddock shouldn't actually officially be there as access to the property for Jack and Claire.

Great! (heavy sarcasm)

So, we're looking through files and come across the LINZ report for the farm - YAH! there is access... sort of. Well, there is an official, above-board entrance to the paddock, however that access is currently blocked off as there is only a fence and no obvious way of figuring out exactly where on the fenceline the entrance should be. But it does exist! Great, problem averted. We'll be able to apply to have resource consent, building consent and whatever other kind of consent is needed because officially we can.

Of course, the Curling Club and Jack and Claire are going to try and move the access to the actual gate into the paddock and begin the process of making that the only official access to the farm paddock whether or not Lowburn Station is privately owned or crown owned. The process will take about 4 months but it shouldn't stop us from starting anything. It's amazing the things that you discover when you start digging.

Should be the end of the story, right? Well, not really. Completely happy that things are above board I'm doing the grocery shopping this morning with Ryan, when we look up into the roof of the supermarket to see the Power man we've been talking to. Recognising us he waves me over to deliver some disturbing news - DELTA the power people who will be putting a transformer in for us and connecting the power bits have had their lawyers looking into the property and as far as they are concerned there is NO access to the property at all.

I can see that you need to roll with the punches a bit when you're building a house because it's all a storm in a teacup. There is access to the property, and it's just a matter of everyone looking at the same piece of paper. A family friend, who is also a surveyer, has the matter in hand and no further problems regarding access should eventuate.

We'll see...