This seems to me to be a symptom of how screwed up we are today.
“It is hideous and totally unsympathetic to the environment,” Mrs McCabe said.
“The first time we saw it we thought it was two shipping containers plonked on top of one another. I don’t see how the developers got away with it. It is a mystery to us.”
She said the council did not care about the design of infill housing and whether it would devalue adjoining properties.
…A resource consent was required for the subdivision of the original property and the infill house met all but one of the rules in the district plan.
Mr MacLean said the house, which has no windows on its southern side, blocked sunlight to the property immediately to the rear. However, that property was owned by the applicant and consent had to be approved.
The district plan and the Building Act do not allow the council to impose taste and imagination guidelines on a property owner of a single house in a residential area.
The colour scheme or design of the house was not set by the council either, Mr MacLean said.
The Ira St house received resource consent before District Plan 56 - affecting infill housing - was notified last year.
If it had been submitted under the new plan the council would have had more control over height, open space and landscaping - but it would still have been much the same design, Mr MacLean said.
So let’s get this straight: they are complaining that the house looks like containers. Tough - it’s not your house. At least it’s not inhabited by gangs, that would really kill your values.
Then they complain that it blocks sunlight. Now that’s an actual complaint… sort of. Oh hang on, it’s the owner’s sunlight it’s blocking. So they’re complaining that the guy blocked sun from his own house? What, do they think he didn’t notice?
Seems like we’re too concerned about other people’s business in this country.
Perhaps we need to sit back and let people do what they want with their own property and acknowledge that that gives us the same right ourselves.
