Homeowners who turned down Crown offers to move out of Canterbury’s red zones are coming to grips with life in the region’s abandoned suburbs.
A total of 7409 property owners accepted the offers following the devastating earthquakes in the region, but 101 turned it down
Ernest Tsao's Avondale home overlooks the Avon River and is surrounded by large homes with well-established gardens, but it is also in a red zone area, and sooner or later all of his neighbours' abandoned homes will be demolished.
The windows on his neighbours' houses have been broken and boarded up and the walls tagged. But he said if you look past those imperfections, he is still living in luxury by anyone's standards.
Tsao told Radio New Zealand that he fears at some stage the Government's warning that they could lose essential services such as power or sewerage will come true.
“Its always been a concern. They have always been quite careful and calculating about how they word their threats, but its always been this low level sort of pain in the back of my head, that there is always that threat that we can't get out of.”
Brent Cairns, from Kaiapoi, said they didn't want to leave their red zoned home as they would never have been able to replace it with something comparable for the money they were offered.
“It's been disheartening to watch people going. Lots of people say they have moved to a new house, not a home.”