'We said our vows at the Selwyn Huts': Couple make emotional plea to stay in their 'slice of heaven'

The future of the Upper Selwyn Huts is now in the hands of district councillors.

Fifty-seven residents and people with connections to the small settlement made an emotional plea to district councillors for the community to stay beyond 30 years at the recent hearings.

​Among them were Dan and Cara Te Ngaru, who got married at the huts and live there with their 7-year-old son Nikau.

• ‘They all end in eviction’
• Council pauses plan 
• Residents make impassioned plea

Cara grew up at the huts, while Dan moved there to be with Cara.

“We said our vows at the Selwyn Huts in front of her (Cara) mother’s house, the house she grew up in,” Dan told councillors.

“(Nikau) took his first steps right where we said ‘I do’ in front of his grandmother’s house, in front of the same trees he now climbs like his mother did.

“I felt like the man I was born to be, (with) a home, a wife, a family. We made it, and what better place than the Selwyn Huts, our own slice of heaven . . . this was our happily ever after.”

Dan said that came crashing down last year when the council proposed to end the settlement in 2039 due to climate change concerns and an uncertain wastewater solution.

The wastewater issue is now solved with the settlement connected to the Pines Wastewater Treatment Plant as part of the newly completed Ellesmere pipeline.

The council has since proposed three options for huts residents:

• A five-year fixed term with no renewal;

• A single fixed term of 30 years; or

• Rolling 10-year terms with the ability to renew, up to a maximum of 30 years.

All three options impose an endpoint – something residents strongly oppose, with 86% of the 211 hearings submissions asking for the council not to set a finite date.

Councillors will deliberate the options before making a final decision on September 17.

At the hearings, the council was also reminded of its grace when it allowed people to live at the settlement full-time after the earthquakes.

David Lloyd and Blanche Fryer were living in Avoca Valley, a short distance from the epicentre of the 2011 earthquake, and already owned a hut they used as a bach.

“We lost our home. It was wrecked,” Lloyd said.

“For us, having the hut was a godsend. We are grateful to the council at the time for allowing us to live there permanently.”

In closing, Mayor Sam Broughton thanked people for sharing their stories, and acknowledged the hurt and pain the process of determining the future of the settlement may have caused.

“We’ve heard about homes and families, memories, holidays, cousins, weddings and future generations, as well as those in the past that have contributed to making the place ​so special,” he said.

“We have listened to all of that . . . and all of that will be considered as part of the deliberations.”