Land probe irks council boss

Queenstown Lakes District Council boss Adam Feeley. Photo: Dean Purcell.

Potential conflict of interest was raised before family trust made special housing area bid, says Adam Feeley.

Queenstown Lakes District Council chief executive Adam Feeley says he is "very exasperated" by the Auditor-General's probe into how he and the local government body managed a special housing area bid by his family trust.

Feeley, a former Serious Fraud Office boss, said he raised the potential conflict of interest with the Auditor-General seven months ago and was told her office was comfortable with his approach.

"I'm very exasperated and frustrated having gone to the effort of having the very utmost probity and transparency for them to do an about-face at this point ... I am very comfortable with what they are doing, I'm just frustrated it's taken them seven months to do it," he said.

Feeley's family trust has made a bid for its land in the Lakes District to get special housing area status.

The proposal for 20 sections is one of 13 that will be considered by that council next week.

Auditor-General Lyn Provost announced yesterday she would look into how Feeley and the council managed his interest in his trust's bid, which was made in early December.

The council last November called for expression of interests for land to become special housing areas as part of an effort to boost housing supply and affordability in the area.

Feeley said yesterday he had raised the matter with the council.

"I went to the council before I actually made the expression of interest because if either the council or the Auditor-General had any concerns whatsoever I would not have submitted an EOI," Feeley said.

"I submitted in good faith on the basis it had scrutiny and like any other citizen I was entitled to put that expression of interest forward," he said.

Feeley, who resigned from the SFO to take up the council's top job in 2012, didn't directly answer a question on whether he had considered the bid before the council had decided on the process for assessing them.

He didn't want to prejudice the Auditor-General's inquiry, he said.

However, he stressed he had no involvement with setting the policy.

"They [the Auditor-General's office] are going to satisfy themselves of that fact ... I have absolutely no doubt," Feeley said.

The former fraud buster also had no intention of withdrawing his expression of interest.

"I am personally 100 per cent comfortable. I don't feel I should be penalised for the position I'm in where I've never disputed the conflict.

"I was the one who raised the conflict, I believe absolutely 100 per cent the conflict has been appropriately managed," he said.

The Auditor-General's office this month received numerous requests from locals requesting an inquiry into Feeley's interest in his family's land being considered for a special housing area.

Feeley speculated that opponents of the special housing areas were doing "what ever they can to undermine" his proposal.