Tauranga Bella Vista Situation
-
@baron-silas-greenback said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@taniwharugby said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo properties have been condemned due to being unsafe, so I guess they will require work costing more ratepayer $$$ to get them to be safe, or need to be flattened?
But haven't they since passed Geo tests etc?
Most of them will be sold at a profit IMO.
What an absolute shafting. The current owners should receive the net profit after associated costs to get them to a fit for purpose state.
-
surely any agreement should include if the Council profits from re-sale?
I am pretty naïve though...
-
@taniwharugby said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo it is where the land is prone to flooding, stability etc.
Think on older properties is a section 36 (will show on your Certificate of Title)
All it means is that when you build you have to get a Engineers report to show that what you are doing and how the risk will be mitigated.
Of particular note is many coastal properties now have to be built at a higher than normal ground level due to global warming and rising seas.
It is far worse then that, basically you cannot insure your land and cannot get a mortgage, also mos builders wont touch it.
Even having an engineers report is pretty meaningless. Sure you could build then (if you find a builder who can get insurance to cover him), but you wont be able to get finance or insurance on your property. And that means you could def never sell it.
The guy who tried to do it to ours had an argument that because it ran beside a river, it could flood... ok... but the river had banks of over 3 metres and was a looong (600-700 metres) away from the house .... and was on raised ground on a hillside... literally 95% of Tga would have been underwater before we even noticed the river was up. We had 3 geo techs explain this to him, he ignored them. Then we had a geologist do a water mapping to explain it, he ignored her. (all at our cost), eventually we had to bundle all that up and send it to the lawyers to start proceedings against the council. His bosses (he is technically a contractor form another firm) very quickly went WTF? And told him to pull his head out of his ass. yay... except it had cost a lot of time and money,
Now this is the same dickwad who decided that all 20 f those families had to quickly get out of the houses before a storm..... storm came, nothing happened. Many other storms came.. nothing has happened. Meanwhile him and his firm keep invoicing for the supposed issues.Keep in mind Tga had had lashing of bad weather the last 6 months.. and all those houses are fine.
-
@Baron-Silas-Greenback yeah half of Whangarei is on low-medium instability land, but are no restrictions noted on the COT.
My house, out of town, is an area that was not mapped when the COuncil had a city wide Geo & Flood Mapping done, so isn't subject to anything.
Many insurers are fine, just need to know what to tell them, some impose specific excesses (ie higher for flood in a flood zone)
I was looking at a build contract for someone for a million dollar home in a 'flood zone' next to the tidal town basin area (which hasn't flooded, despite all the rain we have had) and the Geo report has them requiring huge pilings and the floor level be raised 1m above the datum point.
-
@Baron-Silas-Greenback that is infuriating - the fact he could just refuse to accept that evidence and try and push through his initial decision is utter shit. Feels like councils have all these layers of bureaucracy and shitty systems, except where they absolutely need good checks and balances... and transparency!!
We are only going to hear more of this sort of stuff. With the fights happening around coastal properties and changes to zoning or risk classifications etc.
-
@baron-silas-greenback said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@taniwharugby said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo it is where the land is prone to flooding, stability etc.
Think on older properties is a section 36 (will show on your Certificate of Title)
All it means is that when you build you have to get a Engineers report to show that what you are doing and how the risk will be mitigated.
Of particular note is many coastal properties now have to be built at a higher than normal ground level due to global warming and rising seas.
It is far worse then that, basically you cannot insure your land and cannot get a mortgage, also mos builders wont touch it.
Even having an engineers report is pretty meaningless. Sure you could build then (if you find a builder who can get insurance to cover him), but you wont be able to get finance or insurance on your property. And that means you could def never sell it.
The guy who tried to do it to ours had an argument that because it ran beside a river, it could flood... ok... but the river had banks of over 3 metres and was a looong (600-700 metres) away from the house .... and was on raised ground on a hillside... literally 95% of Tga would have been underwater before we even noticed the river was up. We had 3 geo techs explain this to him, he ignored them. Then we had a geologist do a water mapping to explain it, he ignored her. (all at our cost), eventually we had to bundle all that up and send it to the lawyers to start proceedings against the council. His bosses (he is technically a contractor form another firm) very quickly went WTF? And told him to pull his head out of his ass. yay... except it had cost a lot of time and money,
Now this is the same dickwad who decided that all 20 f those families had to quickly get out of the houses before a storm..... storm came, nothing happened. Many other storms came.. nothing has happened. Meanwhile him and his firm keep invoicing for the supposed issues.Keep in mind Tga had had lashing of bad weather the last 6 months.. and all those houses are fine.
I'm getting agitated just reading this post.
-
@Hooroo dig out the pitchforks bro!! I'll join you. This is just another aspect of why building can be such a pain in the ass. You do everything right, get experts in, and still have the land pulled from under you by inept muppets.
-
@baron-silas-greenback genuine question; how is this muppet still employed?
-
@antipodean said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@baron-silas-greenback genuine question; how is this muppet still employed?
ho ho ho. You don't work much with Councils, do you
Unfortunately, their view of the world usually (and it's not all councils or council employees) doesn't include pragmatism, reality, timeliness or cost effectiveness. There are a lot of cultural aspects to this... but not usually healthy ones.
-
when I was at WDC we were always under pressure to have consents, LIMS etc dealt with within the legislated time frames.
Councils were audited (by an external agency) either annually or every other year (or micro managed if required) to ensure they were meeting deadlines.
This is where they outsource the consent process externally to catch up or meet deadlines, and I guess this is where you can come across conflicts of interest between Building Co. and 'consultants'
But I guess like everything, there were loopholes and work arounds to ensure you are meeting these without meeting them....
-
@antipodean said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@baron-silas-greenback genuine question; how is this muppet still employed?
I presume because he manages to make his company a shit ton of money. He doesnt work for the council, he works a company that the council outsources this stuff to.
-
@hooroo said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@baron-silas-greenback said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@taniwharugby said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo it is where the land is prone to flooding, stability etc.
Think on older properties is a section 36 (will show on your Certificate of Title)
All it means is that when you build you have to get a Engineers report to show that what you are doing and how the risk will be mitigated.
Of particular note is many coastal properties now have to be built at a higher than normal ground level due to global warming and rising seas.
It is far worse then that, basically you cannot insure your land and cannot get a mortgage, also mos builders wont touch it.
Even having an engineers report is pretty meaningless. Sure you could build then (if you find a builder who can get insurance to cover him), but you wont be able to get finance or insurance on your property. And that means you could def never sell it.
The guy who tried to do it to ours had an argument that because it ran beside a river, it could flood... ok... but the river had banks of over 3 metres and was a looong (600-700 metres) away from the house .... and was on raised ground on a hillside... literally 95% of Tga would have been underwater before we even noticed the river was up. We had 3 geo techs explain this to him, he ignored them. Then we had a geologist do a water mapping to explain it, he ignored her. (all at our cost), eventually we had to bundle all that up and send it to the lawyers to start proceedings against the council. His bosses (he is technically a contractor form another firm) very quickly went WTF? And told him to pull his head out of his ass. yay... except it had cost a lot of time and money,
Now this is the same dickwad who decided that all 20 f those families had to quickly get out of the houses before a storm..... storm came, nothing happened. Many other storms came.. nothing has happened. Meanwhile him and his firm keep invoicing for the supposed issues.Keep in mind Tga had had lashing of bad weather the last 6 months.. and all those houses are fine.
I'm getting agitated just reading this post.
Oh it got worse.. wasnt on topic... but
We fnally got through all this stuff... and 1 month before building and groundwork was due to start, the franchise got sold. Ok, we had a signed contract with a price all settled, some payments already made etc.
But the new franchise owner goes ''' yeah nah''' we don't like how much this was quoted and we are a different company.. so don't have to honor that contract. We will charge you 30% more, yes 30%! Some of this included a 50% increase in electrician costs for example. It also included a a 6 month delay to completion date... because... they are fluffybunnies.
The master franchise holders were also complete fluffybunnies and just pointed out that building contracts whilst having a price included are completely meaningless and they can change it to whatever they want, whenever they want . Not strictly true, but needs a court case...
So me being a curmudgeonly bastard, got into the scrap and got lawyer-ed up... again.
We refused to sign the new contract (that also included a completion date now 6 months later).... we ended up getting some of our money back, and just selling the land and staying in our current house and renovating, which we really like anyway!
We ended up selling the land.. and in a happy twist.. made very good money on it. -
@baron-silas-greenback said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@antipodean said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@baron-silas-greenback genuine question; how is this muppet still employed?
I presume because he manages to make his company a shit ton of money. He doesnt work for the council, he works a company that the council outsources this stuff to.
Further to this.. the old adage of always follow the money.
Who are some of the only people likely to make some coin from this debacle? This guys company who are still being 'consulted' and invoicing up a storm.
Who created the issue? This guy and his company....
-
@baron-silas-greenback holy fuck, what a nightmare.
The Building Co we used, ours went fairly well, but we had one of their 'stock' homes and tweaked it, as above, our land hasn't been flood or geo mapped, we are well inland, so if Whangarei floods (rain or tidal) we have bigger things to worry about!
Whereas I know another parent from TR Jnrs rugby team, built with them at the same time, 3 years later they were still having legal issues around completion and compliance of a fire place.
I also know that they have had at least 2 Project Managers leave as well as a couple of their main builders, one of whom built our place and prior to building he had already been recommended to us (cant fault his work)
-
@baron-silas-greenback said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@baron-silas-greenback said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@taniwharugby said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo it is where the land is prone to flooding, stability etc.
Think on older properties is a section 36 (will show on your Certificate of Title)
All it means is that when you build you have to get a Engineers report to show that what you are doing and how the risk will be mitigated.
Of particular note is many coastal properties now have to be built at a higher than normal ground level due to global warming and rising seas.
It is far worse then that, basically you cannot insure your land and cannot get a mortgage, also mos builders wont touch it.
Even having an engineers report is pretty meaningless. Sure you could build then (if you find a builder who can get insurance to cover him), but you wont be able to get finance or insurance on your property. And that means you could def never sell it.
The guy who tried to do it to ours had an argument that because it ran beside a river, it could flood... ok... but the river had banks of over 3 metres and was a looong (600-700 metres) away from the house .... and was on raised ground on a hillside... literally 95% of Tga would have been underwater before we even noticed the river was up. We had 3 geo techs explain this to him, he ignored them. Then we had a geologist do a water mapping to explain it, he ignored her. (all at our cost), eventually we had to bundle all that up and send it to the lawyers to start proceedings against the council. His bosses (he is technically a contractor form another firm) very quickly went WTF? And told him to pull his head out of his ass. yay... except it had cost a lot of time and money,
Now this is the same dickwad who decided that all 20 f those families had to quickly get out of the houses before a storm..... storm came, nothing happened. Many other storms came.. nothing has happened. Meanwhile him and his firm keep invoicing for the supposed issues.Keep in mind Tga had had lashing of bad weather the last 6 months.. and all those houses are fine.
I'm getting agitated just reading this post.
Oh it got worse.. wasnt on topic... but
We fnally got through all this stuff... and 1 month before building and groundwork was due to start, the franchise got sold. Ok, we had a signed contract with a price all settled, some payments already made etc.
But the new franchise owner goes ''' yeah nah''' we don't like how much this was quoted and we are a different company.. so don't have to honor that contract. We will charge you 30% more, yes 30%! Some of this included a 50% increase in electrician costs for example. It also included a a 6 month delay to completion date... because... they are fluffybunnies.
The master franchise holders were also complete fluffybunnies and just pointed out that building contracts whilst having a price included are completely meaningless and they can change it to whatever they want, whenever they want . Not strictly true, but needs a court case...
So me being a curmudgeonly bastard, got into the scrap and got lawyer-ed up... again.
We refused to sign the new contract (that also included a completion date now 6 months later).... we ended up getting some of our money back, and just selling the land and staying in our current house and renovating, which we really like anyway!
We ended up selling the land.. and in a happy twist.. made very good money on it.I have enjoyed reading this as we are looking at selling the farm and maybe moving from the Waikato. There is the option of buying bare land and building on it and putting in stables etc.
After reading this, I think we will look at something with a house on already (Easy enough to build stables etc)
-
@hooroo said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@baron-silas-greenback said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@baron-silas-greenback said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@taniwharugby said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@hooroo it is where the land is prone to flooding, stability etc.
Think on older properties is a section 36 (will show on your Certificate of Title)
All it means is that when you build you have to get a Engineers report to show that what you are doing and how the risk will be mitigated.
Of particular note is many coastal properties now have to be built at a higher than normal ground level due to global warming and rising seas.
It is far worse then that, basically you cannot insure your land and cannot get a mortgage, also mos builders wont touch it.
Even having an engineers report is pretty meaningless. Sure you could build then (if you find a builder who can get insurance to cover him), but you wont be able to get finance or insurance on your property. And that means you could def never sell it.
The guy who tried to do it to ours had an argument that because it ran beside a river, it could flood... ok... but the river had banks of over 3 metres and was a looong (600-700 metres) away from the house .... and was on raised ground on a hillside... literally 95% of Tga would have been underwater before we even noticed the river was up. We had 3 geo techs explain this to him, he ignored them. Then we had a geologist do a water mapping to explain it, he ignored her. (all at our cost), eventually we had to bundle all that up and send it to the lawyers to start proceedings against the council. His bosses (he is technically a contractor form another firm) very quickly went WTF? And told him to pull his head out of his ass. yay... except it had cost a lot of time and money,
Now this is the same dickwad who decided that all 20 f those families had to quickly get out of the houses before a storm..... storm came, nothing happened. Many other storms came.. nothing has happened. Meanwhile him and his firm keep invoicing for the supposed issues.Keep in mind Tga had had lashing of bad weather the last 6 months.. and all those houses are fine.
I'm getting agitated just reading this post.
Oh it got worse.. wasnt on topic... but
We fnally got through all this stuff... and 1 month before building and groundwork was due to start, the franchise got sold. Ok, we had a signed contract with a price all settled, some payments already made etc.
But the new franchise owner goes ''' yeah nah''' we don't like how much this was quoted and we are a different company.. so don't have to honor that contract. We will charge you 30% more, yes 30%! Some of this included a 50% increase in electrician costs for example. It also included a a 6 month delay to completion date... because... they are fluffybunnies.
The master franchise holders were also complete fluffybunnies and just pointed out that building contracts whilst having a price included are completely meaningless and they can change it to whatever they want, whenever they want . Not strictly true, but needs a court case...
So me being a curmudgeonly bastard, got into the scrap and got lawyer-ed up... again.
We refused to sign the new contract (that also included a completion date now 6 months later).... we ended up getting some of our money back, and just selling the land and staying in our current house and renovating, which we really like anyway!
We ended up selling the land.. and in a happy twist.. made very good money on it.I have enjoyed reading this as we are looking at selling the farm and maybe moving from the Waikato. There is the option of buying bare land and building on it and putting in stables etc.
After reading this, I think we will look at something with a house on already (Easy enough to build stables etc)
I have learnt a couple of things that might help you
1/ if an expert (builder/geo tech etc) whilst giving advice on what would need to prepare a site for building utters the words "you would just need to" run away.
2/ I would only build on a flat site a long way form neighbors, anything that neeeds even minor retaining, drainage or consents from neighbors.. fuck that.
3/ Try and get a fixed price contract, shop around until someone agrees to it. Rare but can be done.I reckon with the type of land you would be looking for, you would be able to satisfy all 3, so don't discount it.
Plus.. for every story like mine, there are hundreds of easy builds.... but still... when it goes wrong... shudder -
@Baron-Silas-Greenback I find myself wishing you went to the media to expose this sort of thing as the media eat that type of shit up.
-
@hooroo said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback I find myself wishing you went to the media to expose this sort of thing as the media eat that type of shit up.
Yip, and we already had it all lined up. That is how we got a pay out. Only reason the master franchise started behaving is because he could see how shite it looked.
-
@hooroo said in Tauranga Bella Vista Situation:
I'm getting agitated just reading this post.
#Metoo. I have council planner at our place for resource consent on monday. If I am on here being even more curmudgeonly than @Baron-Silas-Greenback you will all know why.
Pleased that I haven't gone with a building company after comments above. I deal direct with all of the contractors which is time consuming but at least I know what is going on. I did make the mistake of employing a company to deal with council as I thought that I might walk into their offices and start hitting people. Now I want to walk into the office of the people dealing with council and start hitting them instead.
