KEY POINTS:
Ontrack is knocking on doors throughout the country, presenting people with bills for using its land.
Asset and corridor manager Frazer Tweedie said people who had paid a dollar for their lease for many years complained that because they had been looking after the land, Ontrack should be paying them.
He said Ontrack needed to know who was occupying its land and wanted them to enter into a legal agreement with the company to occupy it.
Most land holders understood the position and had entered into agreements. "The rentals we are asking [in the case of residential encroachments less than $200 a year] are reasonable."
Mr Tweedie said they could "expect to find their fences and structures relocated if they refused to negotiate an agreement".
Ontrack manages 19,000ha of railway land, most of it along the rail corridor. Significant amounts of land are used, legally or illegally, by people whose land adjoins the railway.
Ron McGuffie, who lives in Te Awa Ave, Napier, said he had looked after railway land at the back of his section for 27 years. "Now Ontrack wants $125 a year for the land on which I keep a garden and woodshed."
He said Ontrack was just being greedy. "It is a lot of money for a superannuitant, especially when we look after it for them. They have us over a barrel."
- NZPA
