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Council decide not to invoke their powers to resolve.

After the Resource Consent hearing was denied, which based on my interpretation of the Commissions report, I fell through the cracks in the current Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and the Commissioner felt that his hands were tied as no application to remove a structurally unsafe tree would pass the gateway tests if the Council Arborists did not agree. Which is sometimes referred to as a statutory block because my circumstances had not been considered when the RMA was written and via the District plan.

Despite a suggestion by the Commissioner that the Ashburton District Council (ADC) consider the negative environmental effects that the tree is having on the neighbours and invoke their ability to make a sensible decision to deem the tree a risk and allow it to be removed, they choose not to do this.

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Subsequent effects

Additional Bill for $9,000

After the Resource Consent application was denied the ADC sent a bill for Additional hearing Charges of $9,000. Which was 138% more than the average cost of a fully notified hearing. Suffice to say this was a huge shock as 4 attempts had been made to ascertain a reasonable estimate of the application cost before submitting the application.

No consumer protection

Despite the Consumer guarantees Act and the Fair Trading Act stating that they can hold the Crown to account, this does not apply when they are doing regulatory work, which means in reality the Local authority, have immunity from having to provide a fair and reasonable estimate. So shouldn't the RMA ensure that they must do this, when did Ratepayers become an unregulated income stream to help councils balance their books, by passing on costs the council should incur to ratepayers.

Another Commissioner report

So naturally the bill was disputed and despite the ADC ignoring and refusing to discuss an objection to the bill, eventually after trying to contact the CEO the objection was referred to an independent commissioner. No opportunity was given to provide any submission in relation to the objection to the Commissioner. Suffice to say with only the ADC;s input he denied my objection. The report contained assumptions based on why an objection was raised and contained opinion about events that were prejudicial in an ongoing court case and also considered unprofessional, offensive and irrelevant.

Appeal to the Environment Court

So the next course of action is to appeal to the environment court to address the issues raised in the documentation below.

Which will probably lead to another statutory block of some kind and the risk that the Council will try to claim their legal costs if once again we are back into a corner.

I think the reality that this tree will bankrupt me in the process has become a stark reality.

Appeal documentation

Appeal to Environment Court

Evidence documents

Evidence-in-chief

Help improve Ratepayer rights

The new replacement to the RMA has currently passed it's 1st reading in Parliament and is at select committee stage, which means the public can have a say.

We need to ensure that if a person's individual circumstances means that they are blocked because their circumstances have not been foreseen then they should be given the benefit in the situation rather than be blocked from resolving issues.