KEY POINTS:
Auckland's environmental watchdog has abandoned its court action seeking demolition of a partly-built house overlooking a remote west coast walkway.
However, the Auckland Regional Council will appeal against part of a High Court judge's decision in the case it brought against the Rodney District Council and the property owners.
Last month, Justice Rhys Harrison exercised his discretion to allow Anne and Mac Storey, of Parihoa Farms, to continue building the home overlooking the Te Henga-Goldie Bush Walkway.
The ARC had asked Justice Harrison to quash Rodney Council's consent for the house and to order a rehearing.
But Justice Harrison said errors made by Rodney Council in deciding not to notify the consent or to grant consent did not strike at the heart of the consent process.
The errors did not warrant a rehearing, which would delay construction indefinitely and further penalise the Storeys, who had spent $470,000 on the project before it was stopped in May, pending the outcome of the court case.
At the same time, the ARC was asking the Environment Court for a demolition order. Chairman Mike Lee said yesterday the council was no longer seeking demolition.
Its appeal was not against the judge's discretionary decision to allow construction of this particular house.
However, the ARC was asking the Court of Appeal to rule on important issues of principle for the national and regional planning framework.
Mr Lee said the local council should have publicly notified an application for development in or near an outstanding and regionally significant natural landscape.
This would have let the ARC and the public have a say on the granting of resource consent for a house that could be seen from the popular walkway.
It was the ARC's role to safeguard outstanding landscapes.
"There is a question mark over the whole point of having a hierarchy of district, regional and national policy planning statements.
"Regional and national documents are for a serious purpose and if the local councils do not have to take notice of them, what's the point?"
Mr Storey said last night he had not heard that the ARC was dropping its action against building of their dream home but he was delighted with the news. He estimated that legal action would total $1 million for Parihoa Farms and the councils' ratepayers.
Justice Harrison's decision was described by the Environmental Defence Society as putting private rights ahead of the public interest in protecting landscapes and wilderness.
