Letters to the editor: Council should enforce Resource Management Act on itself

Rotorua Lakes Council. Photo / File

So, Rotorua Lakes Council knew motels housing people for more than 28 days was breaching the district plan and therefore its own obligations under the Resource Management Act.

In my view, one could assume the council would have preferred this remain under the radar. However, unfortunately for council, barrister Kevin Badcock unearthed this "hands-off" approach.

The mayor previously said it was not the council's business to tell motel operators who they could and could not rent their premises to.

In my view, yes, it is.

Council wrote the district plan. It is rigorously enforced for ordinary people, has significant compliance costs and sometimes involves court costs accompanied by enormous stress.

Is the council above the law? No. Instead, in my opinion, it has set a very low bar, become an appalling role model and opened itself to court action.

Maybe the council should relax its approach to others to be fair.

Can I suggest the council invest the money and resources being wasted on the current, petty point-scoring Code of Conduct cases on enforcing the RMA on itself, thereby ensuring that government departments also comply with council rules.

Just don't rewrite the RMA to suit.

Paddi Hodgkiss
Rotorua

A special backyard

In response to the editorial, "Land use changes par for course in housing crisis" (Opinion, April 24).

Golf courses are not ''rarefied ground''. Unlike other sports fields, they are usually not fenced, allowing access to the community at all times.

They are costly to maintain but so is any sporting ground.

The difference is golf is one of the few sports that is self-funding, receiving little financial support from local council. Golfers pay for themselves, ratepayers pay for most other community sports.

Golf membership fees finance this user-pays system. If the user-pays model applied to all sports what might those membership fees be? Casual rates per golf game are available at reasonable cost. Golf clubs also provide upkeep of public land at no cost to the community.

Sharing is the quiet backbone of the Springfield Golf Course. Witness the variety of activities the golf course attracts - walking, biking, running, children's play area.

Springfield is used every day, in all weather, from dawn to dusk, as opposed to the Westbrook sports fields - mostly deserted on a daily basis.

For this community, it is quite simply their backyard. And what makes that backyard special is its communal nature.

Robyn McMillan
Rotorua

Ban boxing

I am in total agreement with your correspondent Don Campbell who thinks boxing should be banned.

It also beggars belief that ACC doesn't draw some lines in the sand (or paint them on the canvas). An injury sustained while participating in a sport in which the objective is to injure your opponent can hardly be deemed an accident.

Michael Rowarth
Tauranga

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