North Shore City Council has decided potentially contaminated sites should be recorded on all Land Information Memorandum (LIM) reports.
Wednesday, May 4th 2005, 7:17AM
by The Landlord
The decision was made at the council's strategic management committee meeting on Tuesday, after months of waiting for a decision on the controversial topic. Council senior environmental policy adviser Phill Reid says there are about 2000 affected properties on the North Shore.
The properties are on former horticultural land, largely in Albany, Birkenhead, Beach Haven and Birkdale.
The soil issue was brought before the committee in December 2004 and the council voted to await the outcome of legal advice from the Crown Law Office. The office advised that the council had the discretion to determine for itself whether to notify potentially contaminated sites on LIM reports.
In his report to the committee, Mr Reid said: "The matter has been considered by officers and it has been determined in principle that all LIMs will be annotated with a statement alerting readers to previous activities and natural land based hazards that may exist on their site."
The council intends to include the locations of historical horticultural activities on its internet site, along with information about health precautions and factors that could influence whether historical soils may remain on a site.
