Hauraki District Council

Section 70 Notices Issued For 16 Properties

Formal notice has been given to the owners of 16 Waihi properties that their land must be vacated.

Section 70 Building Act notices have been issued today by the Hauraki District Council to the owners of 16 properties above the Royal and Empire Lodes.

The properties were identified in a technical report last month as being at high or medium risk of subsidence as a result of old mine workings collapsing underground.

These buildings include five privately owned residential properties, 10 residential properties owned by Waihi Gold Limited, and the former Waihi Gold administration building.

Meanwhile, Waihi Gold has been given a week to show why Section 70 notices shouldn’t be served on part of the Martha Mine pit area.

On advice from Council’s QC, Section 70 notices were not issued on the Waihi Gold facilities within the open pit area pending the release, by next week of a report on a monitoring programme that the Company have instigated.

The report will also cover a drilling programme that is proposed to determine the immediacy of the risk to the buildings in the high and medium hazard zone within the pit area.

The drilling programme proposed is similar to the drilling that Council is currently carrying out in the Edward Zone area.

Waihi Gold’s report will be reviewed by Council’s independent international expert peer reviewer, Dr Peter Fuller, of Australia, and Council’s QC.

If the immediacy of the threat to the buildings can not be determined at that time Council will proceed with the issuing of the Section 70 Notices on the buildings in the mine area that are in the high or medium hazard zones.

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