Pair accused of neglecting land

The companies of Kim Spencer and Richard Kroon, joint owners of a 126ha beachfront block at Pakiri, are both in receivership. Picture / Martin Sykes

An Auckland property developer and his alleged kidnapping victim have been threatened with fresh court proceedings unless they take action at a beachfront block of land they jointly own at Pakiri, north of Auckland.

Richard Kroon, of Remuera, is charged with kidnapping business partner Kim Spencer, of Orewa, but now the pair have been told they could find themselves in the Environment Court.

Rodney District Council enforcement officer Peter McErlean has written to the men calling for action on a long series of demands involving planting, eradicating pests and controlling weeds on the 126ha beachfront block, last valued at $17.9 million.

But the council holds out little hope of the developers donning their gardening gear.

Mr Spencer's company, Fisherton, and Mr Kroon's company, Anzani Pakiri, are in serious financial strife. They went into receivership on June 8 and have liabilities estimated at $14.4 million.

The receiver for both companies, Grant Graham of Ferrier Hodgson, said the gardening issue was in hand. "We are quite happy for it to be done and are currently co-ordinating it."

In August, Mr Kroon, 52, and another man were arrested after a nine-month police investigation into the kidnapping of Mr Spencer at Pakiri when he was showing the subdivision to a potential buyer.

Mr Kroon and the other man were charged with the kidnapping, using a firearm, injuring with intent and demanding with menaces. Although Mr Kroon has yet to enter a plea, his lawyer Paul Davison, QC, said last month his client denied the charges.

Rodney wants the developers to complete a replanting programme, control pests and weeds, keep any plants on the land healthy and free of diseases, control kikuyu, suppress pampas grass and woolly nightshade and replace any plants that are in poor health or dead.

The block of land is 25km east of Warkworth.

Lawyer Andrew Braggins, Rodney's issues resolution manager, said thousands of plants would soon be strangled by kikuyu unless it was controlled.

"We're disappointed about this but unsurprised," he said.

But barrister Richard Brabant - himself an unsecured creditor of the two developers - is this week poised to challenge Rodney's abatement notices in the Environment Court, acting for a company which had bought a block at the Pakiri subdivision.

"It's a huge lie to say the planting has been unsuccessful," said Mr Brabant, citing the large-scale vegetation programme of former land-owner Ian Gillespie, who planted 250,000 seedlings in the late 1990s.

These plants on land then known as Arrigato were thriving, stood at 2m-plus and had flourished particularly in gullies, he said.

Mr Brabant also questioned why Rodney had not used a $1.6 million planting bond, paid by the Pakiri developers when they received consent and held in a trust account to fund any lapse in maintenance.

That bond was itself the subject of extensive litigation in January last year, when the Environment Court refused an application from Mr Kroon and Mr Spencer to retrieve it.

The block of land on M. Greenwood Rd has been at the centre of controversy for a decade when Mr Gillespie and his Arrigato Investments bought it and sought to subdivide it into 16 lifestyle blocks.

Rodney refused the subdivision so Mr Gillespie appealed to the Environment Court, which allowed it. The Auckland Regional Council, which also opposed the scheme, sought a judicial review in the High Court, which it won.

By about 2000, the Court of Appeal had overturned that decision, sending it back to the Environment Court.

In the midst of these proceedings, Mr Gillespie sold the land to Susan Hamilton and Mr Spencer and his Kitchener Homes.

In 2002, the regional council was told that revegetation of the site had been a dismal failure, with 70 per cent of the plants dying.

Gardening woes

* Property developer Richard Kroon has been charged with kidnapping, injuring and threatening his business partner, Kim Spencer.

* Both men's companies are in receivership with estimated debts of $14.4 million.

* Rodney District Council says it will take the men to court if they do not carry out urgent gardening work on the land they jointly own at Pakiri.