OIA request shows thousands wasted of rate payer money. Also costing Lance thousands in legal fees needlessly, to only end up being allowed to run a home based business as he was saying to council all along.
Lance's legal bill has now risen a further $5000 approx, after his lawyer needed to correct the judge that could of made him homeless.
Stuff News story,although it was cut a lot and doesn't convey the actual story entirely, but thank you Stuff for publishing.
On 25 January 2023 an Environment Court judge issued amendments to the agreement that Lance and the Selwyn District Council had agreed upon to keep the matter out of the court. Lance still doesn't believe he has done anything wrong, but he was forced to compromise, as going to court to fight the council costs a fortune.
The council would not even allow an agreement to be reached between themselves and Lance in the first instance, saving both Lance and the ratepayers money, ratepayers who ultimately are footing councils legal bill, instead they insisted everything get handled via lawyers. If they had it would of been a simple case to just use lawyers to formally write up the agreement, not argue it out amongst themselves first at great cost.
Now the Environment Court judge who formally accepts and issues the agreed orders as binding, has taken it upon themselves to amend the orders and in doing so has added in about residential activities, which have nothing to do with business activities, but could potentially mean Lance could be told to cease living in his house on the property creating homelessness.
The judge also raised the question about costs (who pays who's legal bills) which has created another issue that needs to be rectified now, as previously it was under the assumption each party pays their own.
All this has now created is more lawyer bills to Lance and council ratepayers, and the issue of housing is something the council should never have added in the first place, as it's a Building Act matter, not a Resource Management Act matter as far as we can tell.
I feel we should have a branch set up in each council that is devoted to holding council accountable for their actions, and to hear the peoples side of things, who also have the power to stop council if they're making unfair decisions that effect peoples lives.
