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Top planning lawyer Richard Brabant has joined the fight to stop demolition controls being lifted on thousands of heritage homes in Auckland City.
Mr Brabant is taking the Auckland City Council to task for a "radical departure" to new rules aimed at protecting 7600 homes in a heritage zoning, covering affluent, leafy suburbs throughout Auckland.
He is unimpressed with statements by Mayor John Banks that legal advice showed the council would be in big trouble trying to stick to a blanket ban in the Residential 2 zone.
"I think that is just scare tactics," said Mr Brabant, who lives in Remuera. He believed the problem lay with the council's heritage experts, who were not prepared to stand firm on the new rules.
The council has removed demolition controls from about 60 per cent of the homes in the Residential 2 suburbs as a compromise aimed at settling a legal row with three Remuera lawyers, Derek Nolan, Brian Latimour and Tim Burcher.
The lawyers oppose the new rules that require people to obtain resource consent before removing or demolishing pre-1940 homes in suburbs such as Remuera, Epsom, Parnell, Herne Bay, Mt Albert, St Heliers and Kohimarama.
Mr Brabant has applied to the Environment Court to join the legal proceedings on the grounds the council is proposing significant changes to the controls with a view to reaching a settlement with the lawyers.
Heritage groups are already campaigning against the "latest assault on the city's character suburbs".
The council has written to 13,000 households outlining the proposed changes and asking for public feedback by August 7.
Mr Brabant said he had serious doubts about the "garden suburb" criterion used by the council to decide which houses were worthy of protection. Excluding houses because they could not be viewed from the street was like saying items stored in Auckland Museum were of less value than items on display, he said.
Mr Banks, who last week said the council needed to find a sound, sensible and legal solution able to withstand scrutiny in court, yesterday said he had not signed up to anything.
He said last week's statement was made on advice he had received, and he would now like to hear anything Mr Brabant - a "highly regarded lawyer on environmental matters" - had to say.
"If we have to go to the Environment Court on contestable advice, then so be it. This is a very important matter for Auckland City."
City planning manager Penny Pirrit denied it was a "radical departure" to remove 60 per cent of Residential 2 houses from the new rules.
She said the council had simply gone through the normal process of listening to concerns by the lawyers to see if there was an opportunity to resolve the appeals.
