Family defy council's satellite dish edict

By WAYNE THOMPSON

The Chen family have a cure for homesickness - Chinese TV programmes.

Since moving from China to suburban Howick 15 months ago they have watched news, sport, entertainment - everything and anything as long as it's in their Mandarin language - beamed in via satellite from Mainland China and Hong Kong.

But their joyous television sessions are numbered. The big black satellite receiving dish in their backyard has landed them in trouble with neighbours and Manukau City Council.

The council is asking the Environment Court to force Keen Chen and his wife, Ye Fang, to get a resource consent for their free-standing dish or take it down.

Mounted on a mast, the dish of steel and mesh is 2.5m in diameter and about 4m high - enough to protrude above boundary walls with neighbouring homes.

It is one of a score that sprout from back lawns in the city's sprawling eastern suburbs.

At $1500 to $3000 each, the dishes are positioned to face west to pick up programmes via the satellites Palapa C2, Asia Two and Asia Three.

Dish installers say clients crave free-to-air screenings from their native China, Malaysia, India, Iraq, Iran and Egypt - and most are news junkies. But the big black dishes are a blot on the landscape to some.

The Chens' dish is raised on a mast to compensate for its level site. Most other dishes lie on an angle, so they are not so conspicuous above 2m-high fences.

Neighbours complained to the council when the Chens' dish appeared last year.

But consultant engineer Leo Sim, of Protocol Services, Pakuranga, said the firm obtained a building consent from the council before work began.

The council had said the dish would be treated as an "accessory building" for a building consent - as long as it was under 4m in height. Therefore, it would not need a resource consent.

Mr Sim said the council changed the rules when its District Plan was introduced in October. The change means big free-standing dishes are a "network utility device" which require a resource consent, the neighbours' blessing and screening of the dish with shrubs or fencing.

In January, the council told the Chens they needed to get a resource consent too - or remove the dish.

The dish remained on the Chens' back lawn, said Mr Sim, because the council was being unreasonable in changing its mind after saying a building consent was all that was needed.

Manukau City Council officer Dhirendra Singh said the need for a resource consent gave the council the opportunity to assess environmental effects and be satisfied accident hazards were properly considered. Heconfirmed the hearings committee had authorised legal proceedings against the Chens.

Keeping the dish was in breach of the District Plan requirements and did not comply with an abatement notice issued in January.

Mr Singh said the building consent was issued under the Building Act, but should also have met the District Plan resource consent requirement before installation occurred.

The council's lawyers believed enforcement action could be taken if the requirement to obtain a resource consent was not indicated on the building consent plans.

Mr Singh said no other owner of a similar size dish faced legal action.