Fendalton neighbours in garden art dispute
A Christchurch planning commissioner is embroiled in a planning botch-up over his palatial new home in Fendalton.
Former Christchurch City Council and Environment Canterbury manager Ken Lawn and his partner Gabrielle Tasman, a patron of Christchurch and New Zealand art, began building a luxury home on a section bordering the Wairarapa Stream near Clyde Rd earlier this year.
Their neighbour over the stream, Kay Fisher, a chartered accountant with her own practice in Bishopdale, became increasingly concerned as vegetation was cleared form the stream border, the scale of the build became apparent and a five-metre-tall sculpture was erected.
‘‘I am a very private person. This was my private place. It feels like a visual invasion. Now I can see them and they can see me whatever I’m doing. Their artwork is right in my face and their outside living area feels like I can holds hands with the people using it,’’ she said.
Fisher is most upset about the fact the consent was non-notified as the council decided she was not adversely affected by the dwelling.
‘‘I should have been at the table from the beginning. The effects on me are major,’’ Fisher said.
Under the Resource Management Act, a notified consent would have given Fisher the ability to make submissions, call evidence and appeal to the Environment Court.
Fisher complained to the council a few weeks ago and employed planning consultant John Cook to advise her. He discovered a number of mistakes in the original application, finding the site coverage of the dwelling exceeded the limit in the City Plan by about 5 per cent. The coverage had been calculated by wrongly including the access strip to the site.
Lawn and Tasman then applied for a variation to fix the error but Cook again found a mistake with the way the property had been measured.
The council appointed planning consultant David Mountford, a former council City Plan team leader, to prepare a report on the variation request which sought to exceed the site coverage, to extend a pergola within the waterway set- back and to erect two sculptures over 1.8 metres within the waterway setback.
One sculpture is already in place.
Mountford, in a report released this week, agreed the house was very prominent from Fisher’s property, saying the effect was primarily due to the higher elevation of the Lawn/Tasman property.
‘‘However, it is the difference between what is permitted under the City Plan rules and the current application that must be considered, not the overall impact of the house.’’
He said if the noncompliant parts of the new dwelling did not exist, ‘‘the visual effect of the house would virtually be the same when seen from Ms Fisher’s property’’.
He has recommended the new application be processed as a nonnotified consent and be granted.
Fisher believes the variation application should have gone to a planning consultant outside of Christchurch to avoid a conflict of interest.
The council has now appointed Christchurch planning consultant Darryl Millar to make the final decision on the variation.
Fisher said she had lost confidence in the process and was considering refusing Millar access to her property. Lawn declined to comment. Council resource consents manager John Higgins said the processing of the application had been carried out at arm’s length of the council to avoid a perception of bias or conflict.