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Three Remuera lawyers almost convinced the Auckland City Council to sign a deal allowing thousands of heritage homes to be demolished in the city.
Derek Nolan, an environmental lawyer and partner in Russell McVeagh; Brian Latimour, a litigation lawyer and partner in Bell Gully, and his wife Shanla; and barrister Tim Burcher are the three parties who almost pulled off a secret deal on Tuesday to allow the demolition of up to 7600 heritage homes.
The deal, masterminded by council planning boss John Duthie and his number two, Penny Pirrit, fell over on Tuesday when Mayor John Banks intervened to stop it.
The Herald has obtained a copy of the secret deal, which shows that the three lawyers said they would increase the number of heritage homes that can be demolished unless the council met their demands.
The lawyers are demanding the council overturn controls on demolishing heritage homes in the residential 2 zone.
The zone covers about 7600 properties in old and established leafy suburbs like Remuera, Epsom, Herne Bay, One Tree Hill, Parnell, Kohimarama and St Heliers.
"The appellants [lawyers] have stated if the council does not accept the proposed terms of the settlement they will contest the entire plan change, including the residential 1 zone before the Environment Court," Penny Pirrit said in a report outlining the deal.
If that action was successful, the lawyers would have opened the floodgates to allow another 8700 homes to be demolished in residential 1 suburbs like Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Freemans Bay, St Marys Bay and Mt Eden without a resource consent.
As well as dropping the demolition controls in residential 2, the deal involved unspecified controls to stop "ugly" new houses. New buildings would still have to be built in sympathy with existing buildings in character streets.
Penny Pirrit's report said the lawyers were not happy at the idea of state housing being worth keeping in residential 2, wanted a review of the extent and location of the residential 2 zone and involvement in a "think tank" to develop the district plan.
Last night Mr Burcher, who lives in Arney Rd, Remuera, said the appeal was based on the freedom of property owners to make their own choice about what they could do with their properties.
"To suddenly come and tell me that my greasy, rattly 100-year-old villa, which faces the wrong way, which has a kitchen facing south, is suddenly a heritage building that the city would be the poorer without - I really struggle with that," he said.
Mr Burcher said the council had "carpet-bombed" the city to solve a problem and based its mandate on consultation with just 0.002 per cent of ratepayers. He objected to the suggestion that the lawyers were threatening to broaden the demolition controls if they did not get their way on residential 2.
But he said, "It is what they [council] do to people all the time."
"We have to be perfectly frank. We see the residential 2 zone as being completely different from residential 1 ... but the way the whole thing is couched we have to appeal against the whole thing," he said.
Mr Latimour was reluctant to discuss what he said were complex and important heritage and property rights issues at this stage of the legal process. "If we can't resolve the matter with the council, for example along the lines of what we are currently negotiating, then we will proceed with our appeals to the Environment Court," he said.
Mr Nolan said the issue for him was about getting the right planning provisions for Auckland. He was not acting out of personal interest or on behalf of others.
Meanwhile, Mr Duthie has defended his decision to negotiate a secret deal with the lawyers. He said officers had always negotiated settlements like these behind closed doors to protect the council's legal advice before getting final approval from a council committee.
Mr Duthie paused when asked why a secret deal was nearly signed on such a big issue without the public being made aware, before saying: "It's a confidential report to the council ... and it would be inappropriate for me to discuss a confidential report."
Mr Banks said there was some suggestion he may have been alerted to the secret deal but his memory was that he had not been fully briefed before being alerted by the Herald on Tuesday afternoon.
City Vision leader Richard Northey said Mr Banks should have been informed by his staff about the deal.
