Determination anchors ‘ark’ to Building Act
AN Aramoana man is vowing to continue his boatbuilding, despite a government department declaring his arklike structure a house.
Just Doi said the ruling received from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) yesterday was ‘‘just nonsense’’.
‘‘They don’t understand the boat building process in the slightest . . . They’re still out of their depth, really.’’
Asked what he would he do, he said: ‘‘I just continue building’’.
‘‘I am building a boat, by God, and they cannot stop me.’’
His building efforts hit the head lines when it emerged last month he asked MBIE to determine whether his structure was a house or a boat.
Mr Doi began the structure about 10 years ago, but last year received a notice to fix — his second — from the Dunedin City Council, which considered it a house built without consent.
Mr Doi said a naval architect sent by MBIE had concluded it was ‘‘a boat in progress’’, but MBIE had ruled against him anyway.
Their determination found the structure’s door, nonnautical windows and the air intake were all ‘‘features that are incompatible with construction [of] a boat used in navigation’’, he said.
Mr Doi disputed that, but said the council should also have bigger problems to tackle ‘‘than myself and my funny old boat’’.
‘‘We got flooding out here at Aramoana twice last year. We had two 1in50year floods.
‘‘Then they come after the old hippies with the boat, right?’’
MBIE would not release the determination last night, as Mr Doi had 15 days to lodge a district court appeal.
Instead, MBIE determinations manager Katie Gordon said the determination concluded the structure was a building under the Building Act, as it had ‘‘features that are incompatible with a boat used in navigation and that are not necessary for the construction of a boat’’. It acknowledged ‘‘work could be carried out that would allow the structure to become a boat used in navigation which would then not be subject to the requirements of the Act.’’