The first series of John Hagen Productions’ A Living Hell: Apartment Disasters, screened in 2021, looked at the appalling state of apartment buildings in New Zealand, investigating issues around multi-unit dwellings, their construction, maintenance and management.
Fronted by leaky home experts John Gray and Roger Levie, the second season — which starts this weekend — includes a visit to the resort.
Hagen says the team interviewed Queenstown council CEO Mike Theelen, former mayor Jim Boult, and Invercargill-based developer Ross Wensley, whose company developed apartments in the resort in the late 2000s, which have subsequently cost ratepayers — through council — millions of dollars.
The repair bill on the 41-unit Oaks Club Resort, on Frankton Rd, developed by Wensley’s company, is estimated to cost up to $45m — it closed on September 1 for remediation, expected to take two years.
Mountain Scene reported in December, 2021, those owners sued the council, for signing off the building, and other parties.
They settled days before a scheduled court case in a deal that allegedly cost ratepayers $40m.
The 73 owners of the 84-unit Oaks Shores had also been suing the council and other parties for $162.9m, however, that was also settled for a confidential sum.
Scene’s chief news hound Philip ‘Scoop’ Chandler was also interviewed, due to this paper’s extensive coverage of the issue.
The first episode airs at 8.30pm this Sunday — Queenstown’s features in the third episode, on February 18.
