Two zones for one street questioned

GILES BROWN

Last updated 05:00 24/06/2011

 

For Dallington resident Ashley Heywood, being placed in Christchurch's residential green zone brings more questions than answers.

While his home on the western side of Halberg St has been deemed suitable for repair, those a few metres across the road have been labelled uneconomic to rebuild.

Heywood, 57, said he wanted to know what made the adjacent land a writeoff while his property was given the all clear.

"It just seems a bit arbitrary," said Heywood.

The discovery of a large sinkhole in his garden did not make him feel any better.

"At the weekend I was wheeling a barrow full of silt and I fell into a tunnel," he said. "The Government is saying it's OK, yet across the road isn't OK. It doesn't seem OK to me."

Heywood was worried his house could suffer subsidence and had engaged geotechnical experts to assess its stability.

He and wife Margaret, 57, were still not sure whether to stay in Christchurch.

"There's things I want to do to the house and I want to get some kind of indication of whether I should bother," he said.

Although the red-zoned land across the street may eventually be "idyllic", it would not be a nice place to live near for some time.

"I guess there will be a certain degree of wasteland, but I hope eventually they turn it into somewhere like Hagley Park with walkways," said Heywood.