A Hamilton man has been told to move his shed – or be stung with a fine of $20,000 per day – despite an incoming law change that will scrap the rules that make it non-compliant.
Brian Morgan had built the shed right beside his property's boundary without consent. He told RNZ he felt targeted by the Hamilton City Council as there were other houses on his street in the suburb of Rototuna that had sheds next to the boundary, and had done for much longer, but he was the only one being forced to comply.
"We've just bought the house earlier on this year, and my wife wanted a nice shed that fit with the house, so as a builder, I built her a nice shed," he told RNZ's Checkpoint.
Morgan and his wife had immigrated to New Zealand from Ramsbottom – a small town near Manchester in the United Kingdom – six years ago.
They bought the house that they had been renting using Morgan's pension from the United Kingdom in May.
Morgan and his wife had wanted to start a new life and provide a place for their grandchildren to visit as they grew up, and a location from which to explore this side of the world.
He had also been diagnosed with throat cancer three years ago, and went through a brutal treatment regime including 35 doses of radiotherapy and three rounds of chemotherapy, which had left him with some ongoing issues.
Morgan works as a foreman at a local construction company in Hamilton, but had to get help to build the shed because of fatigue.
The 7.5m2 garden shed is around 250 millimetres away from the fence, and cost Morgan around $5000 to build.
He knew about the consent rules as a builder, so had sought informal advice from a building inspector he knew through work.
He said had felt confident after the Government announced on August 6 it would ease building consent conditions for garden sheds, sleepouts, and other similar single-storey detached buildings – but told Checkpoint he would likely have to take it down until the law changed.
On August 26, the council issued a notice to fix, stating the shed breached the Building Act 2004 by being too close to the boundary and the house. Morgan engaged the ACT candidate for Hamilton City Council, Preet Dhaliwal, to help – to no avail.
The Hamilton City Council claimed it had received a complaint about the shed on August 19. Morgan wanted to sit down with the complainant to see if he could mitigate their concerns, but he couldn't because the council told him the complaint was anonymous.
While Morgan said he could move the shed, but to be compliant, it would have to be in the middle of his garden. He told Checkpoint the thought of having to take the shed down, only to have to put it back up again at the end of the year, had caused him stress because of his compromised health. But he felt he had no choice.
David Seymour had come to his defence, and accused the Hamilton City Council of hassling Morgan.
"Showing people that as a council you can't prioritise and are hell bent on wasting ratepayers' time and money is an interesting campaign tactic," he said.
"Rates are sky high and councils have plenty of issues they need to be dealing with. Wasting everyone's time hassling a poor bloke about his garden shed is not one of those things. Especially when the government has explicitly said that this issue will be fixed by the end of the year."
In a statement, Hamilton City Council's regulatory operations manager Brent Austin said it was required to adhere to the Building Act legislation currently in place.
"Until such time as proposed legislation changes come into effect, we cannot legally assess building works against them.
"We understand how frustrating it can be when changes to legislation are on the horizon but not yet in effect. However, the Ministry has been clear that until the law officially changes, the current rules must be followed by everyone in New Zealand."
SHARE ME