Hefty fine for moving houses 'sends message'

A company fined $14,000 for illegally moving six houses on to Hastings sections has taken steps to prevent a repeat of the "glitch" that led to the prosecution, its lawyer says.

SHT Holdings Ltd, trading as Relocate Homes NZ, was sentenced in Hastings District Court yesterday after earlier pleading guilty to breaching the Resource Management Act by relocating homes on to sections in Mahora and Flaxmere without the required resource consent.

Hastings District Council previously laid four charges against SHT owner Shannon Tawhiti but withdrew them earlier this month and replaced them with a single representative charge against the company.

SHT's lawyer, Tony Snell, told Judge Geoff Rea yesterday the company had a good relationship with the council and moved 98 homes around the country last year.

"They see this as being a glitch which they've taken steps to ensure will not happen in the future," Mr Snell said.

In December and January, the company moved five houses on to sections in Williams and Totara Sts in Mahora prior to resource consents being granted.

Totara St residents were outraged at the state of the houses and by the council's decision to issue retrospective consents allowing three of the houses to remain on a single section, even though the development exceeded district plan density limits.

A sixth house was moved on to a section in Tarbet St, Flaxmere, in January without consent.

It was removed within days, a consent was later granted for the address and a home moved on to it again.

Mr Snell said the first move to Tarbet St happened because the company had been caught out when an overnight shift to another property took longer than expected. To avoid causing "immense disruption" to Hastings traffic, the house was put on the company's Tarbet St section and left on jacks until it was moved off again.

Prosecutor Fiona Cleary said while SHT was issued with a $300 infringement notice last year for an earlier unconsented house move to Joll Rd, Havelock North, the council "took a more hard-line approach" through prosecution when the further breaches came to light.

Judge Rea said the company had "believed that things would come right.

It has taken steps it should not have taken without the requisite consents and now it has to meet the cost of doing that."

The $14,000 fine was welcomed by Carl Baker, of Hastings House Removals, who is the convenor of the Heavy Haulage Association's specialist housemover group.

Mr Baker said SHT's actions had reflected badly on the industry and made clients of other movers question why they were being charged storage fees for houses ahead of consents being processed.

"As a business you have to stay within the rules," he said.

A spokesman for Totara St residents, Preston Epplett, said the fine was "reasonable" and sent a better message than last year's $300 infringement notice.

While residents remained angry the council had granted retrospective consents allowing the houses to stay on the street, they acknowledged Mr Tawhiti had done significant work on the site and the houses were now "looking good".

"I wonder whether all that work would have been done had we not kicked up the noise that we did," he said.

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule said yesterday's sentencing brought the matter to a close.

Mr Tawhiti did not respond to a request to comment yesterday.