Owners face court over villa makeover

Work on this site in Paget St, Freemans Bay, has stopped by order of the Auckland City Council. Picture / Paul Estcourt

The Auckland City Council has issued an abatement notice after the owners of an 1880s villa in Freemans Bay largely knocked down the house leaving only the floor and four unframed walls standing.

The council put a stop to work on the site, owned by Warwick and Averil Norman, who bought the house in Paget St for $2.63 million in 2002 and gained resource consent last year for alterations and additions.

The council believes the Normans have gone beyond the conditions of their resource consent and demolished the house. The couple now face legal action for which the maximum fine is $200,000.

The Normans say they have followed the correct process and are comfortable with the work done.

The case comes just 10 weeks after the council introduced new rules to prevent houses being demolished or removed in heritage suburbs, including Freemans Bay.

A local Western Bays councillor, Penny Sefuiva, who was a driving force behind the council's new heritage rules, was appalled by the demolition and said the council needed to make an example of the Normans, even if that meant making them rebuild the house.

"It is outrageous behaviour ... they have ignored council orders and they are obviously thumbing their noses at everybody. Who the hell do they think they are?" she said.

"This is a community environment and you have some community responsibilities when you own residential 1 housing."

Paget St resident Bronwyn Gray said she returned from overseas last week to find the house being demolished: "It is quite extraordinary that this can happen in a heritage street to a house pre-dating 1888. The rules have been flagrantly disobeyed."

Michele Witten, who owned the house with her former husband between 1994 and 1998, said they had refurbished the house on the inside but kept the original shell intact.

Averil Norman said she and her husband had received legal advice showing they had done everything required under the resource consent. She hoped a meeting with council officers would resolve the matter.

"We are very comfortable with the fact that we have followed due process."

Architect Graeme Wrack, who has done the resource consent documentation for the Normans, said the completed building would be "very much a residential 1 building, not modern or anything like that".