Charles Li is planning to take Auckland Council to the High Court for granting consent after neighbour's new house extension breached height rules. Photo / Michael Craig.
Charles Li is planning to take Auckland Council to the High Court for granting consent after neighbour's new house extension breached height rules. Photo / Michael Craig.
A North Shore man plans to take Auckland Council to court for permitting his neighbours to build a home extension that gave them views into his swimming pool from a bedroom.
Charles Li, 50, who lives at Regal Place in Forrest Hill, feels his privacy has been lost.
The Holderness family, which owns and lives in the house next door to Li, applied for a building consent to extend their house in 2013.
It was determined by Auckland Council that no resource consent was required based on the information they provided.
But during construction, Li and his wife Elsa Wu complained to the council that the extension appeared to exceed the District Plan's height rules.
Council compliance officers investigated and found that the height did exceed what was allowed by 22cm.
Ian Dobson, the council's manager resource consents north west, said the applicants' registered surveyor confirmed the extent of the breach as 220mm reducing to zero over approximately 2 metres in length.
"Once the infringement was confirmed, a letter was sent to the owners outlining their options to bring the matter into compliance," Dobson said.
Lawyer John Armstrong, acting for the Holderness family, said a minor height to boundary miscalculation was made when the plans for the extension was prepared.
"This error was not picked up during the building consent process, so resulted in minor height to boundary infringement at the point where the new extension joined the original house," Armstrong said.
"When this was discovered, a retrospective resource consent was applied for, and was ultimately obtained, because the council concluded that any potentially adverse effects were 'less than minor'."
Armstrong said that all windows situated in the extension were "entirely compliant" with the relevant requirements.
"The now consented infringement does not and never has provided any 'views' of their neighbour's property," he added.