Boathouse owner to pay court costs
The owner of an exclusive waterfront holiday home ordered to remove unconsented alterations must now pay the local council
$32,000 in costs. Commercial real estate boss Hamish Doig, who owns Colliers International in Christchurch, appealed to the Environment Court for costs against Marlborough District Council after a dispute over the boathouse at his Queen Charlotte Sound property.
The court ruled Doig must pay a 30 per cent share of the
$108,000 incurred by the council fighting the case, after both parties had sought an award for costs from the other.
In July the court ordered Doig to remove a balcony, side extension, toilet and shower from his double-storey boathouse, plus indoor and outdoor furniture, beds, wine barrels, and barbecue equipment. He also must ensure public access across an attached jetty and deck.
The boathouse is 60 metres from the property’s main house, and the court had earlier said that while the added facilities were convenient for the owner, they were ‘‘not reasonably necessary . . . for the proper functional purposes of the boatshed itself’’.
The court said the central issues were ‘‘domestication and privatisation of the coastal marine area’’. ‘‘It is a space equipped to be readily useable as a water’s edge entertainment and living space,’’ the court said.
The boathouse was built with the necessary consents in 2001, then altered and extended in 2015 after the consents had lapsed. After Doig sought retrospective consent for the work, an agreement was reached with the council but this did not include permission for sanitation facilities.
In the Marlborough Sounds, a strip averaging 20m above high tide and covering 900km has been made a reserve managed by the Department of Conservation.
The department’s website says any jetty must be for access, cannot be built on an applicant’s property, must not be used for accommodation or for commercial use, and public access to the foreshore must not be restricted.