Lawyer won damage claim
Herne Bay house was affected by heavy machinery
Aproperty Queen’s Counsel lawyer was able to win a large financial payout from Auckland Council after proving his Herne Bay house had been damaged by heavy roadworks machinery.
Revelations of the 2010 payout come as Conifer Grove residents say they are locked in a battle with the NZ Transport Agency and construction firm CPB Contractors over roadworks on the Southern Motorway.
The home owners allege vibrations from rumbling machinery working on the motorway is causing hundreds-of-thousands of damage to their properties — a claim the NZTA denies.
Their plight has caught the attention of law firm Adina Thorn, which says it is interested in speaking to the home owners to understand whether there was a case for a class action.
Retired QC Paul Cavanagh, meanwhile, says he went through a similar problem almost 10 years ago when roadworks on Curran St sent cracks snaking through the walls of his Herne Bay townhouse.
Yet — unlike the Conifer Grove residents — Cavanagh spent a legal career representing those affected by public building projects and was well equipped to take legal action.
He didn’t reveal how much he won in compensation, but said it was high enough for Auckland Council “to squabble over and try and avoid paying”. He recommend that — with potentially a dozen or more Conifer Grove residents alleging the motorway roadworks had damaged their homes — they band together to mount their case.
“Get a good lawyer and act as a group,” he said, when asked what they should do.
Local resident Gayleen Smith is one of those affected by the work and said she’s been through “two years of pure hell”.
Her Walter Strevens Drive home has an estimated $500,000 in damage she blames on the roadworks.
She claimed she first noticed cracks opening in the walls of her two-storey timber home and its fibre cement cladding after the roadworks started up.
Yet neither her insurance company nor NZTA’s contractor are willing to pay for repairs, arguing the damage dates from before the start of the motorway extension.
Brylee Drive resident Dianne Walker said her insurance company was still investigating whether cracks in her home were caused by the motorway construction and that proving the cause of the damage had been a nightmare and many residents simply gave up.
NZTA senior manager project delivery, Chris Hunt, said the agency and its contractors had worked hard to be a good neighbour to affected residents.