On Wednesday, the Dunedin businessman was issued with a notice to fix by the Dunedin City Council because a retaining wall being built on his Kaikorai Valley Rd property does not have a building consent.
The problem is, the wall is a council transport department project.
"They haven't given themselves a consent - it's a joke, isn't it?
"You'd laugh if it wasn't our money being spent."
About half of the wall had been built and backfilled before Downer was forced to stop work.
Mr Scott was now worried a large section of the hill behind the other half of the wall was exposed to the elements.
"It's rained a couple of times since they started and they've had to dig even further into the slope, so my worry is if it rains again, my building is going to end up on the other side of the road."
Council transport manager Richard Saunders said a building consent had been applied for and was being processed but had not been issued.
It was the council's responsibility to obtain the consent and it would be issued as soon as possible, Mr Saunders said.
The council was investigating how the work started on the $220,000 project before the necessary consent was issued.
All the work to date had been in accordance with the not-yet-issued consent, and an engineer had carried out regular inspections of the site.
An engineer would also assess the site to make sure there was no risk to the slope and to the property above the site.
The wall is being built to stabilise the slope and make a footpath below safe.
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Comments
That’s funny!
Even the councils own departments can’t get through the consent process.
It is coming up to a year since I started a building project but I’m still stuck in the DCC processes.
The next question I need to answer is, will my application become another consent granted, that doesn’t get actioned ?
In other words, can I be bothered dealing with all this bureaucratic dribble or should I just get on with my life doing something positive, in a warmer climate.
Sorry this is a comedy of errors from the DCC. Please DCC take a step back breath in through the nose out through the mouth, take a check pace, and think about how you operate, communicate both internal and external and how others see you. From where I'm sitting it is clouded, a can of worms, and the string is in a bunch of bastards ( goggle it) and the same clowns keep repeating the same mistakes. Are all these mistakes a cry for help? or are you people that arrogant at the DCC you don't get it. Try this at home-- What ever money you guys are paid, I'd like you to take 2/3's out your bank and burn it each week. see how dumb that is and how it is a waste of money, you are constantly doing that with the Ratepayers of Dunedin's coin. Don't listen to Cull when he says its Buzzing it might be in his world but you guys are wasting people time and money.
And I am sure that if, as feared, the building slides down the hill another engineer will proclaim OOPS!.
Just how dysfunctional is DCC when Mr Saunders says yes, it is DCC's problem to source a permit, meanwhile some other person issues a demand to the property owner to fix the problem.
Do DCC really have so many people working in blinkered silos they don't even know what is happening across the corridor.
There really are serious and repeating organisational issues at DCC. But all we ever hear is we should accept their incompetence and support their work.
Councils have to follow laws made by central government. There are getting to be more and more of those all the time. And when it comes to planning, the law doesn't say you can or you can't ... exactly. It says maybe.