Ōpua boat builder can start emergency repairs early, court rules

A court has allowed Doug Schmuck to start emergency repairs to a wharf and various works on the pontoon. Photo / Peter de Graaf

The Environment Court has given a Northland boat builder the go-ahead to partially start emergency repairs to an existing wharf and the replacement and dredging work on the floating pontoon.

Doug Schmuck owns and operates a small boat yard in Walls Bay, Ōpua. Part of the boat yard activity has occurred under various consents and permits in the esplanade reserve, which is part of the boat yard and the foreshore, as well as on the boat yard land itself.

In January 2002, land use and discharge consents and coastal permits authorising boat yard activities were granted on the boat yard land, on specified parts of the reserve and into the Coastal Marine Area (CMA).

The land use consent is open-ended with no expiry date. The coastal permits expire in 2036 while the discharge consents expired in 2018.

As part of the renewal for the discharge consents, Schmuck made an unrelated application for orders for structures and activities in the CMA which was declined by the Northland Regional Council.

He appealed the decision but later withdrew it. The appeal proceeded on the application to renew the discharge consents. The NRC granted the consents, but he filed an appeal against NRC's decision.

In June this year, Schmuck applied for orders for the partial early start of consents for the replacement of and associated dredging of the floating pontoon and consequential emergency repairs to the existing wharf.

He said the existing pontoon has been in place for 20 years and was in a constant state of repair for the last four to five years.

Schmuck said the proposed works would have no impact on the appeal.

NRC had no objection to the early commencement of those works.

"I am satisfied that granting the application will not prejudice any party, or the outcome of this appeal," Environment Court judge Laurie Newhook said.

Schmuck has been involved in separate proceedings over more than two decades against councils and other authorities to obtain legal rights to support use of Wall's Bay Esplanade Reserve to store, wash down, repair and maintain boats, and to discharge noise and contaminants.

In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled easements granted by the Far North District Council to him to support his use of the reserve were valid.