Locals are celebrating the imminent departure of a US family who listed their New Zealand farm for sale after environmental restrictions were imposed on the site. 

Curt and Tricia Zant moved to Hawke’s Bay in 2015 where they planned to settle indefinitely following the $1.7million purchase of a sheep and beef breeding farm. 

In 2021, the Central Hawke’s Bay District Council classified a site within the farm property as an ‘Outstanding Natural Feature’. 

The stretch of Kairakau coastline protected by the determination was one of 11 reclassified sites. 

Mr Zant appealed the decision on the basis it would negatively impact the value of their land and would infringe upon their ownership rights. 

After a hearing panel rejected their application, the Zants appealed to the Environment Court last year where they were again unsuccessful.  

Judge Melanie Dickey along with two commissioners said the reclassification did not ‘constitute an unreasonable fetter on their rights’.

‘It is an appropriate response to the work undertaken to identify outstanding natural features and landscapes in the district.’

Curt and Tricia Zant have listed their New Zealand farm for sale after an environmental ruling

The couple is reportedly considering offers of $6million for the property after paying $1.7million in 2015

The Zants have since listed their property for sale with offers of over $6million being considered, according to Stuff.co.nz. 

They have since reportedly purchased a cattle farm in Missouri and intend to divide their time between the two properties pending the sale. 

Last month, the court ordered the Zants to pay $12,680 to the council on the basis their legal application had ‘unnecessarily lengthened proceedings and constituted an abuse of the court’s processes on a number of occasions’. 

Ms Dickey claimed their application as founded on an ‘entirely philosophical basis to which the council could not properly respond, and on which the court could not have possibly decided in their favour’. 

She added their submissions were ‘ill-founded and without merit’. 

Mr Zant told New Zealand’s Stuff news website that he believed the government had been operating on a ‘socialist agenda’. 

‘I don’t have any problem with protecting the environment,’ he said. ‘I’m an organic farmer. I’ve farmed all my life.

‘I am the epitome of the environmental farmer, but to have an environmental government, local and national, steal your property rights because they think you don’t have the common sense to run your farm in an environmentally-friendly way.

Central Hawkes Bay District Council classified part of the farm an Outstanding Natural Feature

The Zant’s will now relocate in the US six years after moving to New Zealand with plans to settle indefinitely

‘They use that as an auspice to literally convert the nation into socialism so they can control everything.’

Mr Zant said the government had removed the ‘foundational core rights of a free nation, which [are] property ownership and the rights that are connected to it’. 

He added the decision had set a ‘terrible precedent’. 

Social media users have been largely unsympathetic , joining in calls for the couple to ‘f*** off back to Trumpland’. 

‘Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,’ one X.com user commented. 

Commentator Simon O’Connor, on the other hand, said he had been ‘quite struck’ by Mr Zant’s comments. 

‘If council or government are going to put impositions on your private land, then should they compensate you? I personally think yes.’

New Zealand MP Simon Court cited the Zant’s legal battle as an example of local environmental legislation having overstepped. 

‘I think of Curt and Tricia Zant whose Hawke’s Bay farm was slapped with an ‘Outstanding Natural Feature’ classification in the council’s plan, restricting their ability to invest time, care, and capital into their land to drive the growth we’re seeking, without any compensation for their loss,’ he told an All-of-Local-Government Forum in February.

‘Should they be the ones to pay the price of someone else’s decision that the landscape their property sits on is ‘outstanding’ to look at?

‘What incentives does this this create for making sound decisions about what is outstanding when it is costless to the decision maker?’

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Central Hawke’s Bay District Council for comment.