By ANNE GIBSON
Jim Speedy's Covington Spencer has partly won an Environment Court case against the North Shore City Council over financial contributions for the new Spencer On Byron hotel/apartment tower at Takapuna.
Covington developed the 23-level hotel with 248 rooms but later sold units to investors.
They either live in them
or hand them over to the hotel management company for short-stay accommodation.
The council wanted Covington to pay 5.7 per cent of the average land value component of the hotel units, amounting to $365,000, and $93,000 as a contribution to a sewage treatment works upgrade.
Covington Spencer appealed against the council's request for financial contributions on the creation of the unit-title subdivision in the tower, and against being levied for a reserves fund.
Judge David Sheppard upheld the appeal in part, cancelling two conditions imposed by the council relating to financial contributions.
In respect of the sewage contribution, the judge agreed with Covington that the council, having forgone imposing a levy when the land-use consent was first approved, could not later impose one simply because the developer had decided to break the development into unit titles.
In the debate over the reserve fund contribution, Covington said hotel guests made limited use of public reserves around Takapuna, so the hotel should not be levied.
Covington also argued that it provided on-site recreational facilities such as a swimming pool, gymnasium and tennis court, so guests put less pressure on public recreational facilities around Takapuna.
But the judge rejected both arguments, saying gymnasium equipment, tennis courts and swimming pools were also in private homes and deductions from reserve contributions were not made on that account.
He also said no evidence had been presented that the council would not spend money "derived from reserve contributions on the maintenance of the beach".
However, the judge did agree with Covington that the reserve contribution should be re-assessed taking into account the money it had spent landscaping a foreshore area.
He also agreed that the reserve contribution paid when the original land-use consent was granted, amounting to $151,329, should be deducted from the amount now being sought.
