Three companies have been sentenced over a 2023 slip in Queenstown that led to 41 people being evacuated from their homes. Photo / Supplied
Three companies involved in construction works above Queenstown’s CBD have been sentenced for their roles in the September 2023 debris flow that damaged homes on Reavers Lane, forced evacuations and triggered a rare state of emergency in the town centre.
Skyline Enterprises, Naylor Love Central Otago and Wilson Contractors appeared in the Christchurch District Court today on charges laid by the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) under the Resource Management Act (RMA).
Environment Court Judge John Hassan delivered his sentence this afternoon, imposing fines ranging from $61,600 to $154,000. Some 90% of those fines will be paid to QLDC. Each company received a 25% discount for their guilty pleas at the first call.
As well as those fines, all three parties were ordered to pay emotional harm reparations totalling $12,000 to an affected resident.
They must also pay more than $200,000 (combined) by enforcement order to QLDC and $147,000 (combined) to Fulton Hogan or such other identified roading contractor for road repairs.
On September 22, 2023, torrential rain sent a debris flow down the Ben Lomond Reserve, sweeping on to Reavers Lane.
Forty-one people were evacuated, 10 homes were red-stickered and two yellow-stickered.
QLDC alleged the scale of the slip was worsened by construction earthworks and material stockpiled as part of Skyline’s multimillion-dollar gondola redevelopment.
All three companies accepted responsibility in accordance with the agreed summary of facts.
A statement by Reavers Lane resident Sonia Beatty was read to the court by counsel for QLDC.
The court heard the slip had left households with ongoing anxiety during heavy rain, uncertainty over repair costs for their private accessway, and a sense of vulnerability about the stability of the slope above their homes.
The statement said residents had assumed slope risks were being managed by the professionals on the project, only to have that confidence “shattered” by the event.
The hearing centred on the size and placement of a large material stockpile left above the brow of a steep slope for months leading into winter 2023.
The prosecution argued Naylor Love and Wilson Contractors had the experience to recognise the risk presented by the stockpile’s “angle of repose”, noting visible slippage had already appeared by September 14, one week before the major debris flow.
Judge Hassan pressed counsel on whether the behaviour of Wilson Contractors, which had queried the stockpile’s suitability in August, approached recklessness rather than high-level carelessness.
Skyline Enterprises’ counsel said the company had apologised to the community and acted promptly to mitigate ecological impacts, including early expert assessments and sediment management within months of the event.
Counsel said Skyline has been leasing the hillside for 65 years and the September 2023 debris flow was a one-in-25-year weather event, but acknowledging this did not excuse the consequences.
It was argued that, although Skyline is a tourism business and not a construction developer, it applied for resource consents and therefore held regulatory responsibility for ensuring compliance.
The company engaged professionals (Naylor Love and Wilson Contractors) to oversee the project, but acknowledged Skyline remained legally accountable for site safety and for the stockpile being placed outside the consented area.
Naylor Love’s counsel acknowledged the company “missed the mark on the stockpile” and had been upfront about it since shortly after the event, including during communications with QLDC.
Counsel clarified the substantial stockpile was primarily built up between late May and mid-June 2023 and restrictions on equipment during the gondola changeover limited further stockpiling.
Counsel argued while there were errors in judgment, Naylor Love had acted within the parameters of its contractual obligations and was not entirely reckless.
Counsel for Wilson Contractors said the company deeply regretted the incident, had been entirely co-operative and voluntarily complied with all court orders.
While recognising a community safety dimension to the offending, counsel argued that Wilson Contractors’ staff were operating within a limited operational role, not as the “brains” of the project but rather the “body”, moving material as instructed, and could not necessarily be deemed reckless.
Counsel said the company had exercised its professional instinct in raising concerns with Naylor Love.
Judge Hassan delivered a damning appraisal of the companies’ actions.
He described elements of Skyline’s conduct as “highly careless behaviour”. Naylor Love’s choices exhibited “the most blameworthiness of any of the defendants by some margin”.
Judge Hassan said Wilson Contractors was “very careless” in its offending.
“No doubt each of the defendants will reflect that in a situation of engineering difficulty they chose commercial expediency over the safety and other interests of the Queenstown community. That is appalling,” he said.
“Different, albeit very costly and inconvenient choices could and should have been made. That demands a sentencing outcome that denounces and deters.”
Ben Tomsett is a multimedia journalist based in Dunedin. He joined the Herald in 2023.