‘Heads should roll,’ says man behind container art
Hamilton City Council has thrown in the towel in its legal bid to get a shipping container - deemed public art by the Environment Court - shifted after spending $40,000 on legal costs.
Council planning guidance unit manager Grant Kettle confirmed to the Waikato
Times council will not seek to challenge the Environment Court ruling.
“We have assessed the decision and while we believe there are points that are wrong and could be appealed in the High Court, we don’t think it’s in the best interests of the community to do so”, he said. A council spokesperson also told the
Waikato Times the legal stoush had cost ratepayers “approximately $40,000”.
The container was installed on a plot owned by David and Barbara Yzendoorn in June last year as a “public art display”, leading to complaints from neighbours and an abatement notice from council to remove the container. However, according to a decision from the Environment Court, “the abatement notice is cancelled”.
According to the Environment Court ruling: “In short, even though it may retain the look of a shipping container, it can no longer be considered as such. It has been repurposed as an art installation”.
Yzendoorn said he was relieved the legal tussle was over - and also suggested council’s legal bill may be above the $40,000 mark. “It feels like we have been persecuted by council and it’s costs them $70,000 including our costs, so all I can say is good job and heads should roll,” he said.
“It’s been pretty stressful with this hanging over us. We really want to move ahead and get the resource consent decided and hoping the council will support and back us on this plan which they worked on ... it was meant to be a duplex for a home for our two adult daughters.”
The move to halt further legal proceedings was also welcomed by Hamilton councillor Andrew Bydder, who had backed Yzendoorn’s Environment Court case.
“The legal case for the container art is on solid ground so council needs to move on and work with the owners and find a solution rather than fighting it,” he said.
The Environment Court did concede neighbouring residents did regard the container as detracting from their wider neighbourhood’s amenity - and that “it cannot be said to be aesthetically pleasing”, but on an objective basis “its effects do not rise to being offensive or objectionable”.
The court also rejected concerns their ruling would “open the floodgates for avoidance of the consent process by referring to a land use activity as public art”.
That stance also received support from The Environmental Lawyers’ director Andrew Braggins.
“A 20-page decision that is carefully worded. I think they would struggle on appeal.” Braggins said there was one key element to the situation that saw the decision fall in Yzendoorn’s favour.
“Not functioning as a storage facility. That was a critical aspect,” he said. If that had not been the case, “then the outcome would be different”. Braggins also dismissed arguments raised by council that deeming the container public art would “open the floodgates for avoidance of the consent process by referring to a land use activity as public art”.