Gerry Eckhoff: Significant Natural Areas

“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may enter, the rain may enter but the King of England cannot enter - nor all his forces dare cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”  William Pitt the elder -1763.

Two hundred and fifty years later we still have people in NZ (politicians and the botanical puritans) who simply do not understand the importance of that statement on the rights of the common man or women to hold property against the Crown and all its forces. 

The recent controversy over Significant Natural Areas (SNA) has erupted over the identification of unmodified Maori land in Northland. The use rights to vast areas of private land have been identified for political seizure and effectively removed from private control. Most reasonable people assumed that Maori land rights were finally recognized as belonging to, and the property of, various Iwi and individuals who wish little more than to exercise their rights to their land just as the rest of us do or thought we could do.

NZCPR Weekly: Private Property Rights Under Threat

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we examine the land rights protest in Auckland and the dangerous implications for New Zealand, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Dr Bryce Edwards provides an analysis of media reporting about the conflict, and our poll asks whether you believe the Government should allow the use of private land to settle Treaty grievances.

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Gary D. Libecap: The Consequences Of Land Ownership

“If a man owns a little property, that property is him.…it is part of him….in some ways he’s bigger because he owns it.”

—John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath,

Property rights are the most fundamental institution in any economy and society. They determine who makes decisions about valuable resources and who captures the economic gains from those decisions; they mold the distribution of income, wealth, and political influence; they set time horizons and investment incentives; and they define who will take part in markets. These attributes are well recognized among economists for spurring economic growth.

But economists have missed another equally important characteristic of private property rights that has long been emphasized in philosophical, legal, and historical literatures and is captured in the quote from John Steinbeck above. Individual owners are more confident, self-reliant, and entrepreneurial than non-property owners. Where access to property is widespread, politics are more stable. Owners have a stake in the existing political regime. 

Gerry Eckhoff: Who owns the “Commons”?

There is currently an ongoing but very private high level debate between Maori and the Crown as to ownership of fresh water. The public are excluded from this debate presumable until Iwi and the Crown reach an agreement. Once the occurs, we the people will then be “consulted” as to whether we all agree with the Government to transfer our use rights in the commons to Iwi ownership and management. The Waitangi Tribunal agrees with Iwi that they have justifiable claims to fresh water.

The “Commons” is referred to in literature as a place in our world that has a public good dimension; is free for people to enjoy and is owned by everyone who claim a share of its use and management.

Matt Ridley from the UK: Property rights underground

The government is consulting on whether to amend the law so that you cannot stop a gas or geothermal company from drilling a horizontal well a mile beneath your house, though you can get paid for it. Lord Jenkin of Roding last week pointed out that, under the common law, ownership of your plot reaches “up to Heaven and down to Hades”. Is the government justified in weakening this aspect of your property rights below a depth of 300 metres?

Yes. When air travel began in the 1920s the United States passed a “uniform aeronautics law” to prevent planes being charged with trespass for flying over private property. In this country judges made case law that overflight was not trespass. This is a similar case — shale gas extraction would not work if trespass was held to happen deep beneath your feet.

Gerry Eckhoff: Theft of Rural Land

Theft, by definition is a criminal act where property belonging to another is deceitfully taken without the owners consent and with the intention of depriving the owner of permanent possession and use. The various forms of theft have been given names such as robbery, burglary, embezzlement yet there is still no name given to the legal taking of private property without compensation.

The entitlement a rural land owner has to the reasonable use of their property is unchallenged by most, yet the environmental lobby deliberately seek to gain use rights away from the owner. The actual ownership of the land is never questioned as the rates (and usually the mortgage) must still be paid by the registered owner of the land in question. The legal right of use however of rural private property has been stealthily changed to allow those with a supposed “higher” use value (preservation) to acquire use rights at no cost to them and without compensation.

Frank Newman: RMA and land prices

Last week the Economist magazine ran an article reporting New Zealand has one the world's most over-valued housing markets. This may explain why. It involves a well-intentioned individual and a scruffy piece of land on the Tutukaka Coast 30 minutes north east of Whangarei.

The 6.6 hectares (16 acres) had been a forestry block that backed onto a coastal settlement. The pines were removed in 2005, and Pampas grass has been thriving ever since. He bought the land in 2006, with the intention of rezoning it from Coastal Countryside to Living. The proposal was for a low density residential development comprising 24 sections. A substantial area was to be set aside as a reserve for native revegetation, and included covenants preventing residents for owning dogs and cats, lest their pets prey upon local Kiwi which have been returning to the Coast is significant numbers.

Sandra Goudie: Rural Property Lockdown

Already Regional Councils require farm plans to some degree, activities became discretionary for any property identified as being a “significant natural area” (SNA), and fencing is becoming increasingly compulsory, and at least in one case a discretionary activity.

Practically any remnant of bush can be classified as an SNA on the basis of maintaining a corridor. People have had their lives turned upside down as they battle to understand what is happening while at the same time trying to defend their love of the land and ethic of stewardship.

Richard Epstein: Going Red on Property Rights

Earlier this month, I attended a Chinese-American Conference in Beijing on property rights co-sponsored by the William and Mary Law School and the Tsinghua University Law School. One purpose of the conference was to award in absentia the Brigham-Kanner Prize to retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor for her contributions to understanding the law of property. The intensive two-day discussions on property rights were open, animated, and cordial. They also revealed deep ironies in both the Chinese and American approaches to property rights.

On the Chinese side, much grand rhetoric spoke of the power and wisdom of the socialist state, which until 1988 had doggedly held that private property was illegal. Even today, Chinese property law does not grant outright ownerships to any of its citizens. Instead, it draws a basic distinction between urban and rural lands. The former are owned by the state on behalf of the people. The latter are owned by collectives that parcel out use rights to its various members. In both of these situations, the individual person in possession of a particular parcel of land has a set of precarious use rights that are respected in any dispute between private individuals, but can be overridden by the action of the state or the collectives (which are themselves under government control).