A Dunedin City Council hearings committee has declined a retrospective resource consent on a Carroll St development after finding a ‘‘concerning'' level of deviation from the original consent application.
A building consent was issued to the owner, Triple V Holdings, of Auckland, in January 2005 which allowed the construction of five two-storey units at 115-123 Carroll St, each containing four bedrooms and one kitchen. The consent allowed for short-term commercial residential activity.
While the outside of the building met council approval, the units had been developed as 10 two-bedroom residential or commercial residential units from the outset and no building consent had been applied for, or granted, on that basis.
In a resource consent hearings report, committee chairman Cr Colin Weatherall said the key issue for consideration was the integrity of the Dunedin City Council District Plan.
‘‘The committee is, in fact, very concerned at how the units have come to exist on the site. The evidence from the site visit leads the committee to conclude that the development had been purposely constructed in contravention of the original subdivision resource consent and building consent issued.''
Cr Weatherall said there was no evidence on site to suggest short-term commercial residential activity. On the contrary, there seemed to be a large number of personal chattels in all units visited, which indicated long-term tenancy arrangements.
‘‘There was no indication of any on-site management, or any signs on the property advertising the presence of accommodation. Furthermore, there are a number of building consent issues - such as fire escape and protection; access and facilities for people with disabilities - that would need to be addressed if the property was to be used for short-term accommodation purposes.''
Cr Weatherall said the committee was also concerned about the extent to which the proposal departed from the permitted density of the zone. The area was zoned residential 4 and the density controls represented a ‘‘benchmark'' for the overall intensity of development anticipated within the zone.
Granting a retrospective consent would create a situation where developers could ignore the terms of the district plan or their existing resource consents, he said.
‘‘While the effects of this one proposal may, considered in isolation, be minor, the granting of consent would open the floodgates to similar proposals that would effectively render the rules of the residential 4 zone meaningless.''
Triple V Holdings and submitters to the resource consent application now have 15 working days to appeal to the Environment Court against the whole or any part of the council decision.
