Resource Consent denied
- tracy470
- Jan 18, 2022
- 2 min read
Common sense has not prevailed in this ridiculous situation, the Commissioner felt that his hands were tied in that he felt that he couldn't take the numerous positive effects of removing the tree into account because the local District plan and resource management act only gave him the power to take the negative effects to the tree into consideration.
To be fair to the Commissioner he did in his decision try to point us in the right direction in relation to an appeal to the Environment Court, which wasn't pursued because the quote from Lawyers to lodge an appeal started at $15-20,000 just for their fees, plus $10,000 for more Arborist and Planners reports and the possibility that if we didn't win the Council could claim their costs as well.
He also felt that doing a resource consent hearing was the wrong process and that an application to the Environment Court to remove the tree as a protected tree may have been a better process. Having been told that a resource consent application by the local Council, a local planner and the previous owners lawyers was the only process, this has left a bitter taste and anger over the $17,000 (Council only fees) bill to go through the resource consent process. This doesn't include the applicants own expenses to lodge the application.
To request a Plan change the deposit to be paid to the Council is $26,000 and this gives them free rein to spend as much of the applicants money as they deem necessary to defend the application. What ordinary rate payers would have the financial ability to give any organisation the ability to spend your money without any control over what they spend, the consumer guarantees act does not apply here......
The Commissioner also implored the Council to reconsider their position as there were significant positive effects to remove the tree, that is obviously causing a huge amount of stress for the applicant, the previous owner and surrounding neighbours. Buy of course the Council didn't take this into consideration.
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