Planning rules must be applied sensibly
CIVIS doesn’t always agree with opinions expressed by sometime Act Party MP and Dunedin city councillor Hilary Calvert in her regular ODT column. But her remarks about resource and building consent processes in Dunedin (31.5.18) struck a chord.
The last construction with which Civis was involved was of a glasshouse.
Thankfully, because of its small size, and distance from the boundary, no consent was needed.
But Civis knows of a family, living on rural residential land, who, some years ago, added a room to their house. Their land comprised two adjoining lots, with the house on one. When they bought the second from their neighbour the DCC insisted on a condition that, for town planning purposes, the two sections must be regarded as one, so a second house couldn’t be built on the newly acquired land.
Fair enough — they wanted the land for grazing and tree planting, not for a house.
Later, they decided to add a room to their house. Because the deck to be attached to the new room would be less than 3m from the old boundary between the two lots, the DCC, despite having stipulated that the two lots must be treated as one, decided resource consent was required, as if the second lot belonged to someone else.
So the family, living on the original section, had to ask themselves, as the owners of the second section, for consent to build as planned, return a signed consent form to the DCC, and, of course, pay the extra fee for resource consent (according to the DCC website the current fee is $820).
It sounds like something out of a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, but it really happened.
Having gone through this farcical process, the family waited for the consent. And waited. And waited. And waited.
Eventually, the husband happened to meet the head of one of the DCC departments, whom he knew in a different context, and mentioned in conversation the crazy resource consent requirement, and their frustration, after jumping through the completely pointless DCC hoop, at the delay in it being granted.
The manager promised to look into the matter, and the consent arrived a few days later — but what if that meeting hadn’t occurred?
Dunedin city councillor David BensonPope assures us that council staff are now efficient and helpful, and straightforward consents are processed quickly.
That’s good news. But common sense needs to be part of the process, so that those wanting building consent don’t have to perform unnecessary but expensive rituals. What matters is a focus on the purpose of rules, not on mindless, rigid conformity. Sue Bidrose (who seems to be an effective CEO) should look into rationalising the consent processes for all, as Ms Calvert suggests, not just for projects promoted by hotel entrepreneurs.
‘‘Dance a cachucha, fandango, bolero’’ – Civis’s first acquaintance with the Savoy Operas, over 60 years ago, was learning that chorus from The Gondoliers, soon after, as a child, joining a parish church choir. One might wonder why a church choir was practising Gilbert and Sullivan, but it was for the annual parish concert, which drew on a different G&S work each year.
Last Sunday afternoon Civis, attending the first half of the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra’s matinee concert, at the King’s and Queen’s Performing Arts Centre, finally heard a real fandango, composed by Luigi Boccherini, and played by the NZ Guitar Quartet as an encore, after performing Rodrigo’s Concierto Andaluz with the DSO.
Civis had never before heard guitars play with an orchestra — the concierto, like the fandango, was brilliant, the lovely melodies of the Adagio dramatically framed by the opening and closing dance forms.
Thanks, Michael Stedman, for initiating contact between the Quartet and DSO.
The other work new to Civis was Jack Spiers’ deeply moving Night Music.
His early death was a sad loss, not just to his family and friends, but to New Zealand music.