Judgment summary - Quake Outcasts & Fowler Developments Ltd v Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority

[2015] NZSC 27

This is an appeal from the decisions of the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

This case concerns two applications for judicial review, which were heard together. The first appellant, Quake Outcasts, is a group of 46 individual or joint owners of properties in the red zone.The second appellant, Fowler Developments Limited, is a property development company that owned eleven sections at Brooklands, all of which were red-zoned after the earthquakes. They all own either vacant land or uninsured properties.

In the High Court

Fowler Developments and the Quake Outcasts sought declarations from the High Court that the red zoning of land was unlawful, and that the decision to offer to purchase either vacant land or uninsured residential properties for 50% of the 2007 rating value of the land was improperly made.