Logan Campbell promised compo.. this Board ignore it

We bought our leasehold home in 1995, our children were 2 and 4. It was a “lilac shack” cold, damp and small, to live in while we built our ‘foreverhome’ behind the cottage. Just after the framing went up our builder became insolvent and we became project managers, responsible for ordering the windows, tiles for the roof, replacing the floor because the time delay meant  the chipboard had got too wet, so many dramas.

In 1998 our beautiful home was nearly finished.

Fast forward when Cornwall Park sent a valuer around to assess the value of the house. He assumed we had done a beautiful job restoring an old house! The ceiling mouldings, floors and skirting boards were all carefully chosen, the weatherboards and windows to look like the house had always lived in the street! We had to inform it was all new.

Over 26 years we brought up our two sons here, they attended the local school, we were part of a community. Many members of our large merged family also lived with us at various times – this really has been a family house for 27 years.

It’s terribly upsetting that the beautiful granite benchtops, marble fire place surrounds, elaborate plaster mouldings, exquisite curtains stuffed with bumping, chandeliers, is valued by the Trust Board for $180,000, the same value as a wreck of a house nearby.

We planted many trees while other neighbours chopped down ancient natives. The trustees of Cornwall Park don’t seem to value the importance of community. Neither do they care about integrity and fairness.

Logan Campbell promised leaseholders fair compensation for their improvements. The Trust Board seems determined to ignore this. When we bought our property we thought we were building a home we could treasure and someone else would in the future.  Why else would anyone spend in today’s money $1.5 - $2.0 million on building  a beautiful home?

We have paid our rent on the dot each month but we have watched the Trust Board erode the value of our asset so much so that it isn’t salable. No one in their right mind would buy a section or a run down house on a section to restore or build a new house on it, let alone pay an exorbitant new rent. This is proven by the ghost section in beautiful Maungakiekie Ave, empty for 16 years because no one will take the risk of building a beautiful home  - there is no value in this.