Brownlee calls for judicial review
"For someone who has been frequently judicially reviewed over the last six years, I know how these things can fall and stand." Ilam MP Gerry Brownlee
Ilam MP Gerry Brownlee has waded into a Fendalton funeral home debate calling for a judicial review into the decision that gave it the go ahead.
Independent commissioner Philip Milne approved an application by Bell, Lamb and Trotter to operate a smallscale funeral home from company managing director Andrew Bell’s Fendalton home.
The decision has outraged Rochdale St residents who staged a protest in the street on Saturday.
During the protest Brownlee, New Zealand’s newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, said Milne’s decision was ‘‘the most extraordinary document’’.
‘‘There are a number of points where I think he has failed in his duty that I think merit a judicial review.
‘‘For someone who has been frequently judicially reviewed over the last six years, I know how these things can fall and stand.
‘‘I think this is an exceptional case here.’’
The application was granted under the ‘‘home occupation’’ rules as set out in the Christchurch City Council‘s new district plan. The council’s planner declined the consent, but Bell, Lamb and Trotter requested an independent commissioner rule on the issue, which it was able to do under the Resource Management Act.
Brownlee said home occupation was supposed to be someone carrying out their job in their home because that was where they worked from all the time.
‘‘This is a branch office of a reasonably substantial business that operates in other parts of the city.’’
The district plan defines home occupation as ‘‘any occupation ... undertaken within a residential unit by a person who resides permanently in that residential unit’’.
Bell, 31, bought the property in 2015 as his home and would live in it while also using it for small funeral services.
Brownlee said the issue was essentially a local body one, but he was pressuring the council to support a judicial review.
‘‘If your own planning department could not approve this, then why wouldn’t you back them with a judicial review?’’ Brownlee said at the protest.
Waimairi ward councillor Raf Manji, who will challenge Brownlee for the Ilam seat at September’s election, said common sense would dictate that this type of job had not been envisaged under the district plan’s ‘‘home occupation’’ rules.
He said council was exploring what options it had, but it would be unusual, as the consenting authority, for the body to pursue a judicial review.
Bell, who recently acquired the family business that has been operating since 1872, said he had made a number of concessions and changes to the plans to mitigate any potential effects on neighbours.
He had halved the number of services to be held from 52 to 26 a year, but said it would take about four years to get to that level.
Services would be limited to 10 people, including staff, and no mortuary services would happen on site. There would be no traditional hearses at the address, just an unmarked station wagon-style vehicle.
In his decision, Milne said the district plan allowed for home occupation and did not focus on the nature or character of the activities. He said many churches were in residential zones and funeral services happened next door to homes on a daily basis.
Allowing families and friends to have small ‘‘home’’-based intimate services could be seen as providing for the wellbeing of people and communities, Milne said.
Rochdale St resident David Nicholls, who represented about 160 residents against the funeral home, said a legal opinion about seeking a judicial review was being sought, but his first preference was for the council to initiate the review.