‘Roseneath fence’ court decision: Council mulls options

Wellington City Council is considering its options following the rejection today of its High Court appeal against an Environment Court ruling stemming from the long-running ‘Roseneath fence’ dispute.

The Council’s City Planning Manager, Warren Ulusele, says the High Court decision has major implications for property owners seeking to build houses or other structures on hillsides or other sloping land in the city.

“We’ll review the High Court decision but it is possible that the District Plan – the city’s planning and development rulebook – will be changed to overcome the limitations resulting from the decision.”

Last year’s Environment Court decision ordered the removal of a ‘play structure’ built on a property in Carlton Gore Road that blocked views of the harbour from an adjoining property, higher up the hill, in Maida Vale Road.

Mr Ulusele says this is not about the removal of the structure – “in fact the Council led the case seeking its removal, and was successful in achieving that outcome.

“This is about the broader implications for Wellington’s residential landowners. With the Carlton Gore Road matter successfully resolved, the Council then turned its attention to this particular Environment Court interpretation that had major implications for many residential property owners on sloping sites around the city.”

He says the crucial issue in this appeal is the interpretation of the definition of 'ground level for the purpose of measuring building recession planes' in the District Plan.

“While this may seem like a somewhat dull technical matter, it has the very real effect of causing existing structures to become non-compliant and severely limiting the development that owners of uphill properties can undertake within their properties. In a city like ours, this was always going to be problematic.

“Retaining walls are a very common feature of residential properties in a hilly city like Wellington – and many of them are on property boundaries. The interpretation adopted by the Court is very challenging to apply in a practical way – one of the more extreme examples could be planning height limits that are at, or below, the level of the ground.

“Clearly that’s not an acceptable situation – so we will have to do something on behalf of the potentially impacted land owners around the city.”

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