KEY POINTS:
A secret deal to scrap demolition controls on thousands of old homes in Auckland City was done without written legal advice.
Senior planners did not provide written legal advice when they asked councillors to sign away a key heritage plank of the previous council, Herald inquiries show.
The inquiries have also found that it has taken the council nearly three years to get written legal advice on the appropriateness of a blanket ban for demolition of pre-1940 homes in character suburbs.
Until March, planning general manager John Duthie and city planning group manager Penny Pirrit had relied on verbal advice from lawyers Simpson Grierson to handle increasingly complex legal issues with the new heritage rules. This has resulted in councillors having to make big calls without any written legal advice in front of them.
In early March, Citizens & Ratepayers councillors on the city development committee signed a secret deal, masterminded by Mr Duthie and Ms Pirrit, to lift demolition controls on 8112 houses in affluent suburbs such as Remuera, Epsom, Mt Albert, Herne Bay, Parnell, Kohimarama and St Heliers.
The deal was aimed at settling a legal row with three Remuera lawyers who oppose the new rules and have appealed to the Environment Court.
The confidential committee report, obtained by the Herald, contains no legal advice. Ms Pirrit said the report was based on verbal advice from the council's senior legal adviser and Simpson Grierson partner Bill Loutit.
Had it not been for Mayor John Banks intervening at the 11th hour, the deal would have gone through.
The council has subsequently proposed a compromise to lift demolition controls on half the 8112 houses in the Residential 2 zone.
This has outraged heritage groups and prompted talk from Mr Banks of protecting more houses from the wrecker's ball.
Asked whether he saw anything wrong with signing away the policy - a flagship one of the last council - without providing councillors with written legal advice, Mr Duthie said he did not.
"On planning issues I think it is perfectly valid on an issue like this for the officers to have sought and summarised in the report the legal information they were given," he said.
The council has taken the rare step of giving the Herald a copy of its written legal advice and printed a summary in its City Scene news sheet.
Simpson Grierson said defending the full demolition controls in the Environment Court had "very little prospect of success", lifting demolition controls in specified parts of Residential 2 had a 60 per cent likelihood of success and lifting the controls in all of Residential 2 had a 75 per cent likelihood of success.
Barrister David Kirkpatrick reviewed the advice for the council and said the chances of defending the rules were low.
