Two Nelson families have had to walk away from their dream home because the Nelson City Council deemed their front windows too small to “passively observe the street”.
Changes to the resource building consent rules – named the front yard rules – were made last year in an effort to boost community well-being on suburban streets. It includes rules stating that a garage can no longer protrude in front of a house unless it sits four metres from the road and that at least 50 per cent of the front yard has to be landscaped. Occupants in new homes also need to be able to passively observe the street.
But Nelson City councillor Rachel Reese says the changes are nonsense and will make it harder for people to build their home due to rising consent costs.
A Nelson couple who wanted to build a home on Sanctuary Dr had their consent turned down because “the design and appearance of the dwelling would have an adverse effect on streetscape values” as it would provide “little opportunity for interaction with the street”.
The large windows of their home were to face north, to capture the most of the sun, with the driveway and garage facing the road to the east.
In the decision to turn down their application, NCC wrote that “the building would create a poor relationship to other buildings in the vicinity” and that only three narrow window openings would face east onto Sanctuary Dr, not enough for “informal surveillance of the street”.
The case is one of three that Rachel says she is aware of and slammed the new rules as “pedantic” and “nonsense”.
“If the intent was to build positive engaged and safer communities then a pedantic plan rule was the wrong tool to get out of the tool box. Get rid of a few rules and make it easy for people to close the street for a barbeque so they can get to know their neighbours. A bunch of sausages and some road cones have a lot going for them.”
Rachel says it’s understandable that people don’t want driveways running through the sunny side of the house and big windows on the cold side just so they can keep a watch on the street and that the rule will trip a lot more people up. “These decisions reinforce my opinion that the direction the council has taken with these plan rules is bureaucratic, out of step with good resource management practice and ignores one of Nelson’s and New Zealand’s biggest issues – housing affordability. And if the outcome is that people walk away from building their new home, it costs jobs as well.”
Along with the new front yard rule, the front fence rule means fences along unclassified roads cannot be any higher than 1.2 metres and fences fronting classified roads must be no higher than two metres, and any portion above 1.2m must be 50 per cent see-through.
Both rules are currently under appeal with the Environment Court by Nelson man Mark Lile. He was unable to be reached for comment in time for this week’s article but in the meantime NCC is applying the rule and people need to get resource consents.
