‘Boxy’ building battle continues in court
Is “boxy” in the eye of the beholder?
That is a central question a High Court judge must ponder, in a high stakes battle between neighbours in an affluent Hamilton suburb.
A hearing being held this week will determine the fate of a supposedly “boxy” house being built by former Black Cap Matthew Hart and his wife Sheree in Tamahere.
Their immediate neighbour Andrea Waddell, who sold them the land they are building on in March 2022, has brought the case to court in the form of an injunction to stop the build.
As part of the sale deal, Waddell had included a covenant that asserted her right to approve the design of whatever home was built on the land.
However the Harts’ home did not meet her approval because the design they had chosen was, in her view, “too boxy“and would clash with the surrounding rural environment.
On the hearing’s second day yesterday, Sheree Hart gave evidence about her bid to build what she described as her “dream home”.
The house design had been inspired by the winning house in the 2021 Master Builders Home of the Year awards, known as the Black Quail House, in Bannockburn in central Otago.
They had budgeted $4 million for the construction, but delays wrought by the ongoing legal action had now blown that figure out to $5m.
To date, about $2m of that figure has already been spent.
Relations between the soon-to-be neighbours were at first convivial. Waddell had, at the time, evidently been making plans to relocate to central Hamilton and offered to rent her home to the Harts for the duration of the twoyear construction period.
Hart said they considered the offer, but turned it down after deeming the required $900 per week rent too steep for their budgets.
Things turned sour not long after, when Waddell declined to give her consent to the Hart’s house designs.
But whether she was completely explicit in her disapproval and her edict that they refrain from building until they came up with a design that she approved of is not clear.
As Hart told the court, the purchase covenant itself did not stipulate what building style Waddell did not like. It only asserted her right to veto the design.
Hart said prior to buying they were shown two examples of nearby houses that Waddell considered were “boxy” and not what she wanted being constructed over her back fence. However, that was the extent of such guidance.
Communications between the parties later broke off for several months.
Hart said she had been waiting for a response from Waddell to their offers of a compromise, and had taken the lack of contact as a sign their neighbour had given up her opposition.
They had also received legal advice that Waddell’s withholding of consent was completely unreasonable in the circumstances - and therefore they were legally entitled to proceed with construction.
“I believed the ball was firmly in her court ... [so] we took a stance.”
The hearing, before Justice Michael Robinson, continues.