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With the permission of Dr. Aaron Fox, I am publishing his open letter dated September 26th 2023 addressed to New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. Dr. Fox’s letter concerns the proposed KiwiRail freight hub near Palmerston North, which directly affects our own unique property (a stunning two-storey estate with 500+ m2 floor, 3000+ m2 garden, 3000+ m2 paddock housing up to 9 people).
Over the past three years, my family has tried repeatedly to engage with KiwiRail regarding how their freight hub proposal will impact our unique property and the unfair compensation they have proposed. All of our efforts have been met with indifference and frustration, as KiwiRail does not seem to care about how their project will affect us.
Dr. Fox’s letter voices many of the same concerns I and other impacted residents have about KiwiRail’s expansion of the original approved plan, the lack of community consultation, the environmental impacts, and the coercive use of compulsory acquisition powers against landowners like myself. I am publishing his important letter in the hopes that Prime Minister Hipkins will intervene and reconsider KiwiRail’s approach, before more livelihoods and homes are lost to this deeply flawed project. Our community deserves to have our voices heard on this matter of national importance.
The open letter raises numerous concerns about KiwiRail’s proposed rail freight hub expansion, its impacts on the community, and whether it has acted appropriately as a state-owned enterprise and requiring authority. It calls for government intervention and scaling back of the project.
I sincerely hope everyone receiving this letter can assist with sharing it to as wide an audience as possible. Broadly disseminating these important concerns across your networks will empower our community’s voice to be heard regarding KiwiRail’s flawed freight hub proposal. Your support in distributing this message through social media, email, or other channels gives us the best chance of driving real engagement and, ultimately, positive change around this project. We need your help to spread this open letter far and wide – only together can we apply enough pressure to get the government to properly investigate KiwiRail’s actions. I’m asking you to share this because amplifying our worries is crucial if we want to protect our community. Please lend your voice to distribute this letter – united we can make an impact. Thank you.
26 September 2023
The Rt Hon Chris Hipkins
Prime Minister
Parliament Buildings
Wellington
Re: An Open Letter regarding KiwiRail’s proposal for a 24/7 Intermodal Freight Hub near Palmerston North
In October 2018 Cabinet approved the use of $40 million of Provincial Growth Fund monies to assist KiwiRail in land-banking 65 hectares of land for the relocation of the current rail freight facility in Palmerston North. Cabinet was advised that this was industrial-zoned greenfield land, removed from neighbouring rural or residential properties. Regional Development Ministers expressed their reservations on 5 November 2018 that this should not become a toll operation.
KiwiRail has since expanded this proposal to a 177.7-hectare 24/7 intermodal freight facility near Palmerston North. To achieve this, the State-Owned Enterprise is using its powers as a Requiring Authority to place a designation on the local district plan, and to compulsorily acquire private properties – farmland and family dwellings. Much of the proposed operation involves the construction for rent to freight companies of warehousing and freight forwarding facilities.
A State-Owned Enterprise is required to exhibit ‘a sense of social responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which it operates’. What KiwiRail has offered our community is acoustic-treatments for those who will live closest to the hub – hermetically sealed houses with insulation, double-glazing and heat pumps to keep the noise out. For the rest of us, if we cannot cope with 24/7 construction and operation, and the concomitant noise, vibration, light and dust, then KiwiRail is satisfied that we can sell-up and leave.
The objectives of the Provincial Growth Fund were to:
- Create jobs, leading to sustainable economic growth.
- The Freight Hub may not create any new jobs. The figure of a workforce of 2,000 at the freight hub announced in July 2020 by then Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has been bargained down to supporting some 300 jobs during the construction phase. KiwiRail’s proposal may simply relocate workers from existing freight forwarding facilities in Palmerston North. As at 31 July 2021 KiwiRail has spent $19,183,000 million of the $40M of PGF funding, and supported 43 previous and 29 current jobs to a total of 72 jobs. This is, after all, a land-banking exercise.
- Increase social inclusion and participation.
- KiwiRail’s Social Impact Assessment was a desktop exercise conducted without reference to our community. Our community was never involved with the multi-agency workshops which produced a masterplan for the hub. KiwiRail has not offered any benefit or amenity to our community arising from this proposal.
- Enable Māori to realise aspirations in all aspects of the economy.
- From the outset, KiwiRail consistently dealt with the wrong Iwi in respect of the freight hub site – with Rangitāne and not with Ngāti Kauwhata.
- Encourage environmental sustainability and help New Zealand meet climate change commitments alongside the productive use of land, water and other resources.
- The majority of the site is situated on land outside of the Palmerston North City Council’s industrial zone and encompasses highly productive farmland hear the city. The area is also crossed by drainage and tributaries of our local streams and is prone to flood several times a year. The substratum is largely silt, which is prone to liquefaction in the event of an earthquake. Even KiwiRail understands that the geotechnical work and earthworks required to reshape and drain the site are prohibitively expensive.
- Improve resilience, particularly of critical infrastructure, and diversify our economy.
- The proposal is the opposite of diversification, concentrating log, container and milk powder freight movements on one gigantic site. It is also redundant, given that the existing Manawatu Inland Port near Palmerston North for container movements, and the separate proposals for the Marton and Woodville Rail Hubs to service the local forestry industry.
There is also the question of what constitutes ‘critical infrastructure’. KiwiRail is a requiring authority under the Resource Management Act for ‘its network utility operation being the construction, operation, maintenance, replacement, upgrading, improvement and extension of its railway line.’ The compulsory acquisition of private property to construct and rent warehousing facilities is surely exterior to the definition of ‘network utility operation’. This is rightly the purview of local developers and landlords, yet KiwiRail has declared them to be trade competitors for this project.
To realise the designation of 177.7 hectares of both industrial-zoned and privately-owned land as the site of the freight hub, KiwiRail has:
- Expanded upon the original Cabinet approval (from 65 to 177.7 hectares, and from the relocation of an existing freight facility to an intermodal freight hub proposal).
- Neglected its requisite ‘sense of social responsibility’ regarding our community.
- Subverted the objectives of the Provincial Growth Fund.
- Creatively reinterpreted its approval as a requiring authority to define warehousing and freight forwarding facilities as elements of the railway ‘network utility operation’.
This sets a dangerous precedent for other requiring authorities to reinterpret their approvals without reference to the Minister for the Environment, especially with respect to the compulsory acquisition by these requiring authorities of private property. A local kaumātua has observed that the freight hub proposal represents the greatest land-grab for railway construction in 150 years.
KiwiRail has announced that it will prepare an investment case for the development and operation of the freight hub. Any such case must be based on the latest freight transport data and projections, and not the 2014 figures which informed KiwiRail’s original proposal. Further, my abiding concern is that any such investment case is predicated on KiwiRail operating as a government-approved coercive monopoly:
- As a Requiring Authority, KiwiRail can:
- Designate land for network utility operations – which currently includes non-network utility operations including warehousing – thereby denying this land for any other use.
- Develop and operate on designated land without further reference to the Resource Management Act.
- Operate without competition from private sector developers and landlords.
- Determine and police its own operating conditions for the proposed freight hub and exclude certain aspects of its operation from any restriction or control.
- As a State-Owned Enterprise:
- KiwiRail has access to government funding not available to the private sector.
- KiwiRail is the sole beneficiary of government policies to transfer freight movement from road to rail.
- Is required to be ‘as profitable and efficient as comparable businesses that are not owned by the Crown’, yet the profitability and efficiency of the proposed freight hub can only be achieved by KiwiRail operating in lieu of, rather than in competition with, comparable freight companies.
My eight questions to you, are, therefore:
- Do you approve of the expansion by KiwiRail of the 2018 Cabinet approval for the relocation of the existing Palmerston North railway freight facility to an intermodal freight hub?
- Do you approve of the expansion by KiwiRail of the 2018 Cabinet approval to encompass privately-owned farmland and households?
- Do you agree that the 2018 Cabinet approval for a 65-hectare land-banking exercise authorised KiwiRail to expand the original business plan to a 177.7-hectare inter-modal warehousing and freight hub proposal?
- Do you agree that KiwiRail can, without reference to the Minister of the Environment, reinterpret its powers as a Requiring Authority under the Resource Management Act to designate and compulsorily acquire privately-owned farmland and households for non-network utility purposes?
- Do you agree that highly productive land close to a city would be better purposed as an intermodal freight hub?
- What constitutes the success of this proposal – the number of new jobs created, the volume of freight transferred from road to rail, or does the intermodal freight hub have to return a profit rather than operate as a toll facility?
- What is worse – losing your livelihood or family home to a natural disaster, or to KiwiRail’s coercive monopolistic practice?
- For the proposal to be viable, KiwiRail needs to be the exclusive beneficiary of Government policy, funding and authority. From my perspective this represents an alarming state-sponsored monopoly. Is this how your Government intends that State-Owned Enterprises and Requiring Authorities should operate?
If your response to any of these questions is in the negative, then I further request that you please:
- Initiate an enquiry into the Freight Hub Proposal, particularly with respect to any areas where KiwiRail may have expanded upon, neglected, subverted or creatively reinterpreted its approvals and responsibilities; and
- Initiate an enquiry into whether – or not – the Freight Hub Proposal meets the requirements of the Provincial Growth Fund; and
- Clarify whether – or not – KiwiRail as a Requiring Authority under the Resource Management Act can designate and compulsorily acquire private property for the purpose of non-network utility operations; and
- Consider putting a halt to the 177.7-hectare freight hub proposal, and instead direct KiwiRail to transfer the existing freight facility to the new 65-hectare site on industrial-zoned greenfield land. Those private landowners who stand to lose their livelihoods and homes, and the community of Bunnythorpe, would welcome an end to the uncertainty and anguish which this proposal has delivered to us all since 2020. Ancillary works would best be undertaken by local developers and landlords, though the standard planning approval process.
This is an open letter, which I am circulating as widely as possible. I consider that the issues which I have canvassed are of interest to not only our own community but the wider public, especially during a national election.
Yours sincerely
Aaron Fox (Dr)
但愿有所影响。
以下是由AI翻译的中文全文。
经 Aaron Fox 博士允许,我发布了他于 2023 年 9 月 26 日写给新西兰总理 Chris Hipkins 的公开信。
Fox 博士的信件涉及拟议的 KiwiRail 货运枢纽,该枢纽位于北帕默斯顿附近,直接影响我们独特的房产(一栋令人惊叹的两层楼房产,占地面积 500 多平方米,花园面积 3000 多平方米,围场面积 3000 多平方米,最多可容纳 9 人)。
在过去的三年里,我的家人一再试图与 KiwiRail 沟通,讨论他们的货运枢纽提案将如何影响我们独特的房产以及他们提出的不公平赔偿。
我们所有的努力都遭到了冷漠和沮丧,因为 KiwiRail 似乎并不关心他们的项目将如何影响我们。
Fox 博士的信表达了我和其他受影响的居民对 KiwiRail 扩大最初批准的计划、缺乏社区协商、环境影响以及对像我这样的土地所有者强制使用征用权的担忧。
我发表他这封重要的信,希望 Hipkins 总理能够介入并重新考虑 KiwiRail 的做法,以免更多生计和家园因这个严重有缺陷的项目而丧失。
我们的社区应该就这一具有国家重要性的问题发表自己的声音。
这封公开信提出了许多关于 KiwiRail 拟议的铁路货运枢纽扩建、其对社区的影响以及它是否以国有企业和征用机构的身份适当行事的担忧。
它呼吁政府干预并缩减该项目的规模。
我衷心希望收到这封信的每个人都能帮助将其分享给尽可能广泛的受众。
广泛传播这些重要的担忧将增强我们社区的声音,以便就 KiwiRail 有缺陷的货运枢纽提案发表意见。
您通过社交媒体、电子邮件或其他渠道分发此消息的支持为我们提供了最大机会来推动真正的参与,并最终围绕该项目做出积极的改变。
我们需要您的帮助来广泛传播这封公开信——只有团结起来,我们才能施加足够的压力,让政府适当地调查 KiwiRail 的行为。
我请您分享这一点,因为放大我们的担忧对于我们想要保护我们的社区至关重要。
请发出您的声音来分发这封信——团结起来我们可以产生影响。
谢谢你。
2023 年 9 月 26 日
尊敬的 Chris Hipkins 阁下
总理
议会大楼
惠灵顿
关于:致新西兰总理的公开信,关于 KiwiRail 在北帕默斯顿附近建设 24/7 多式联运货运枢纽的提议
2018 年 10 月,内阁批准使用 4000 万纽币的省级增长基金资金,以协助 KiwiRail 预留 65 公顷土地,用于搬迁目前位于北帕默斯顿的铁路货运设施。
内阁获悉,这是工业区绿地,远离邻近的乡村或住宅物业。
区域发展部长于 2018 年 11 月 5 日表示,他们保留意见,认为这不应成为收费运营。
自那时以来,KiwiRail 已将该提案扩大为一个位于北帕默斯顿附近的 177.7 公顷的 24/7 多式联运货运设施。
为了实现这一目标,这家国有企业正在利用其作为征用机构的权力,在当地地区计划上指定一项名称,并强制征购私人财产——农田和家庭住宅。
拟议运营的大部分内容涉及为货运公司建造仓库和货运代理设施,供其出租。
国有企业需要表现出“一种社会责任感,同时考虑到其所在社区的利益”。
KiwiRail 为我们的社区提供了那些将住在枢纽附近的人的隔音处理——密闭的房屋,带有隔热层、双层玻璃和热泵,以防止噪音。
对于我们其他人来说,如果我们无法应付 24/7 的建设和运营,以及随之而来的噪音、振动、光线和灰尘,那么 KiwiRail 认为我们可以卖掉并离开。
省级增长基金的目标是:
创造就业机会,从而实现可持续的经济增长。
货运枢纽可能无法创造任何新的就业机会。
区域经济发展部长 Shane Jones 于 2020 年 7 月宣布的货运枢纽的劳动力为 2,000 人,已被谈判降低到在建设阶段支持约 300 个就业岗位。
KiwiRail 的提议可能只是将工人从北帕默斯顿现有的货运代理设施中调走。
截至 2021 年 7 月 31 日,KiwiRail 已花费 4000 万纽币 PGF 资金中的 1918.3 万纽币,并支持了 43 个以前的就业岗位和 29 个当前的就业岗位,总共 72 个就业岗位。
毕竟,这是一项土地储备活动。
增加社会包容性和参与。
KiwiRail 的社会影响评估是一项桌面练习,未经参考我们的社区。
我们的社区从未参与过制定枢纽总体规划的多机构研讨会。
KiwiRail 没有为我们的社区提供任何由该提案产生的福利或便利设施。
使毛利人能够在经济的各个方面实现愿望。
从一开始,KiwiRail 就一直在货运枢纽选址问题上与错误的 iwi 打交道——与 Rangitāne 而不是 Ngāti Kauwhata。
鼓励环境可持续性,并帮助新西兰履行其气候变化承诺,同时有效利用土地、水和其他资源。
该场地的大部分位于北帕默斯顿市议会工业区之外的土地上,包括该市附近的高产农田。
该区域还横跨当地溪流的排水沟和支流,并且每年容易发生几次洪水。
基质主要是淤泥,在发生地震时容易液化。
即使是 KiwiRail 也明白,重塑和疏通该场地所需的地质工程工作和土方工程成本高得令人望而却步。
提高弹性,特别是关键基础设施的弹性,并使我们的经济多样化。
该提案与多样化背道而驰,将原木、集装箱和奶粉的货运集中在一个巨大的场地。
考虑到北帕默斯顿附近的现有马纳瓦图内陆港用于集装箱运输,以及为当地林业提供服务的马顿和伍德维尔铁路枢纽的单独提案,该提案也是多余的。
还有一个问题是,什么构成了“关键基础设施”。
KiwiRail 是根据资源管理法案设立的征用机构,用于“其网络公用事业运营,即建设、运营、维护、更换、升级、改进和扩展其铁路线”。
强制征用私人财产以建造和出租仓储设施,当然超出了“网络公用事业运营”的定义。
这理应是当地开发商和房东的权限范围,但 KiwiRail 宣布他们是该项目的贸易竞争对手。
为了实现将 177.7 公顷的工业区和私人拥有的土地指定为货运枢纽地点的目标,KiwiRail 已经:
扩大了最初的内阁批准(从 65 公顷扩大到 177.7 公顷,并从现有货运设施的搬迁扩大到多式联运货运枢纽提案)。
忽视了其对我们社区应有的“社会责任感”。
颠覆了省级增长基金的目标。
创造性地重新解释了其作为征用机构的批准,将仓储和货运代理设施定义为铁路“网络公用事业运营”的要素。
这为其他征用机构设定了一个危险的先例,即在未经环境部长参考的情况下重新解释其批准,特别是在这些征用机构强制征购私人财产方面。
一位当地的 kaumātua 观察到,货运枢纽提案代表了 150 年来铁路建设的最大规模的土地掠夺。
KiwiRail 宣布,它将为货运枢纽的开发和运营准备一份投资案例。
任何此类案例都必须基于最新的货运数据和预测,而不是 2014 年的数字,这些数字为 KiwiRail 的最初提案提供了依据。
此外,我一直关注的是,任何此类投资案例都基于 KiwiRail 作为政府批准的强制垄断者的运营:
作为征用机构,KiwiRail 可以:
指定用于网络公用事业运营的土地——目前包括非网络公用事业运营,包括仓储——从而拒绝将该土地用于任何其他用途。
在指定土地上开发和运营,无需进一步参考资源管理法。
不受来自私营部门开发商和房东的竞争。
确定并实施其自身运营货运枢纽的条件,并将某些运营方面排除在任何限制或控制之外。
作为国有企业:
KiwiRail 可以获得私营部门无法获得的政府资金。
KiwiRail 是政府将货运从公路转移到铁路的政策的唯一受益者。
需要“像不受皇室拥有的可比企业一样盈利和高效”,但拟议的货运枢纽的盈利能力和效率只有通过 KiwiRail 取代而非与可比货运公司竞争来实现。
因此,我向您提出的八个问题是:
您是否批准 KiwiRail 将 2018 年内阁批准的现有北帕默斯顿铁路货运设施搬迁至多式联运货运枢纽的计划?
您是否批准 KiwiRail 扩大 2018 年内阁批准的范围,使其涵盖私人拥有的农田和家庭住宅?
您是否同意 2018 年内阁批准的 65 公顷土地储备计划授权 KiwiRail 将最初的商业计划扩大为 177.7 公顷的多式联运仓储和货运枢纽提案?
您是否同意 KiwiRail 可以在未经环境部长参考的情况下,根据资源管理法案重新解释其作为征用机构的权力,以指定和强制征购私人拥有的农田和家庭住宅用于非网络公用事业目的?
您是否同意靠近城市的高产土地更适合用作多式联运货运枢纽?
该提案的成功构成什么——创造的新就业岗位数量、从公路转移到铁路的货运量,还是多式联运货运枢纽必须盈利而不是作为收费设施运营?
失去生计或家园遭遇自然灾害,还是失去 KiwiRail 的强制垄断行为,哪一种更糟糕?
为了使该提案可行,KiwiRail 需要成为政府政策、资金和权力的唯一受益者。
从我的角度来看,这代表了一种令人担忧的国家赞助垄断。
您的政府是否打算让国有企业和征用机构以这种方式运营?
如果对这些问题的任何回答是否定的,那么我进一步请求您:
启动对货运枢纽提案的调查,特别是关于 KiwiRail 可能扩大、忽视、颠覆或创造性地重新解释其批准和责任的任何领域;和
启动调查,以确定货运枢纽提案是否满足省级增长基金的要求;和
澄清 KiwiRail 作为资源管理法案下的征用机构是否可以指定和强制征购私人财产用于非网络公用事业运营;和
考虑停止 177.7 公顷的货运枢纽提案,而是指示 KiwiRail 将现有货运设施转移到工业区绿地上的新 65 公顷场地。
自 2020 年以来,那些将失去生计和家园的私人土地所有者以及 Bunnythorpe 社区将欢迎结束该提案给我们所有人带来的不确定性和痛苦。
辅助工程最好由当地开发商和房东通过标准规划审批流程进行。
这是一封公开信,我正在尽可能广泛地传播。
我认为我所讨论的问题不仅对我们自己的社区而且对更广泛的公众都具有重要意义,尤其是在全国大选期间。
您真诚的
Aaron Fox 博士