E tautoko ana ahau, me hokona e te Kaunihera o Otautahi i te whare kei Aranui kua tanumia nga tupapaku tokorua. (I agree, the Christchurch City Council should buy that house in Aranui where the two bodies were buried.)
Horekau e tika ana kia noho ki runga i te whenua i nehua te tokorua kua kohurutia. (It is just not appropriate for people to live on a site where two murdered people were buried.)
Ma taua take ano, horekau e tika ana kia hanga whare ki runga i nga urupa Maori tahito. (For the same reason, it’s inappropriate for homes to be built on old Maori burial sites.)
They should put it up for auction and bid alongside everyone else. We have had a gutsful of Bob Parker buying property, he owns most of the empty space in town.
Some people wont care that someone was killed there.
Where does it stop – does the council buy every home that someone is killed at? (and yes – I acknowledge that there is a difference between the location of a murder and someone being buried).
A lot of me is very sympathetic – and would like the place bulldozed and made into a park or something. However – the rational part of me says – if someone does not care – let them buy it.
Sadly in NZ there would be far to many parks “in memory of” if we start doing this for all murder victims.
Hit submit to early. Its hard – part of be would say sell it. But if it was my mother / wife / child – I really don’t know if I would feel different.
I hope at least finding the bodies will give some closure to the families.
Kelvin, if you – or people who agree with – believe in hobgoblins, please feel free to buy the property yourself (if it’s for sale).
That spot is Tapu all right, then again someone else might not mind. Also, does this extend to the neighbours, to the whole street, where do you draw the line? Also who should pay for this? What’s the rationale that all taxpayers or ratepayers fork out for that indulgence?
Let’s analyse strictly for a second. Assuming the owner is the actual murderer, and assuming there’s a mortgage. Now it may well be that the wife had a life insurance, so things could get nicely complicated. But in the simple scenario, the bank sells the house at auction for a lousy price. They’ll loose out because the guy will be in jail for a while. That’s not going to happen now because everybody is yelling that the taxpayer should buy it. That’s a happy bank for you, bailed out by the ratepayer.
Now the neighbours: they might not like living next door, so they move. In the circumstances, the price may be depressed a bit. They could try to sue their neighbour, but its hard to see on what basis or whether it would actually help them. Case of bad luck I’d say, if my neighbour does something stupid (like cutting all his trees down), I can’t go to the council either to sell my house to the taxpayer in order to avoid loss.
All in all, it’s sad and tragic, but that doesn’t make it a responsibility for the taxpayer.
being tapu might stop it from being burgled, after all it is one of the more salubrious parts of Ch Ch
Are you angry? Or just upset?
Can’t tell as it is lost in translation.
Hey Kate Kelvin is no Micael. In fact I think you would probably get along.
Statement 1: “It is just not appropriate for people to live on a site where two murdered people were buried”
Statement 2: “For the same reason, it’s inappropriate for homes to be built on old Maori burial sites”
Does it follow therefore that all people buried in Maori burial sites were murdered ?
It is a little messy to work out (I live in the neighbourhood where this house is, it sits right next to the expressway and a local school). I think the community has a right to ask it to be removed. And if Housing Corp still owned it they would have no hesitation, they have demolished many similar properties in the same street on far lesser pretexts.
It has become unsaleable and its value decimated, you may argue against the murderer on one side but the other half is owned by another family who had nothing to do with this and are probably not wealthy and they have pretty much lost their equity.
And this is a tough area, that has had a lot of money spent on improving it and they deserve a break.
I understand the family living on the other side from where the crimes took place don’t have any equity in it and now they have to find somewhere else to live which must be very hard for them to have to do apart from everything else that has happened this week.
All power to the mayor and getting his councillors on side, every situation is different and in this case you can see that what they propose is in line with all the other work the council and government agencies have spent money on already.
OK Dimmo – Hampshire Street is the local ghetto, there has been a lot of work and a lot more money spent there by the council and government as everyone in the area knows, now the council is talking about improving the community through this action (such as creating a public facility)
Now I would be interested what Kelvin thinks the land can be used for, since the council has already made suggestions.
It is not a big ask for the council to create something there buying up the land, they do this all the time every day across the city. One of the things that stand out in the socially deprived areas of the city is the lack of community facilities. I don’t know what is viable there but there is an opportunity.
I would hope any proceeds would go to the dead woman’s family, of course the bank gets in first but at least there is not a possibility that her family could be out of pocket.
Swampy, history shows over and over again that politics don’t resolve ghettos, they create them.
Latest newspaper articles seem to suggest that the neighbours’ house isn’t actually owned by them. The situation around the murder house seems unclear as well. Maybe best to wait for some details to emerge before having the mayor rush in to score some political points with the ratepayers’ money.
Ew, I say demolish the house and then get a Maori relgious leader to cleanse it.
I have no reason to suppose political point scoring, I applaud the mayor as he is a sane rational person who appears to have a genuine concern in this case. I am sure he enjoys widespread support in the local community for this stance.
Be that as it may my primary concern would be that the family at 169 next door are able to find a new home.
Agree with you Kelvin – great work in highlighting the issues from a Maori perspective.
Congratulations also to the local authority for being proactive and giving the neighbourhood a level of reassurance regarding the future of the property.
Can I also add that the MP for Te Tai Tonga was incorrect when she criticised police for the way they treated the family living next door. She needs to get her facts right first as she unnecessarily painted Maori – and police – in a negative light.