A Queenstown publican’s gobsmacked at the council bureaucracy involved just in painting his landlord’s building.
Pog Mahone’s owner Roy Thompson says for his painter to get consent for scaffolding, he needed licences to occupy from two arms of council.
That’s because the building’s Rees St side’s on road reserve while its lakefront side’s on recreational reserve.
‘‘That is obviously patently ridiculous council can’t get their act together there.’’
For the Rees St side, Thompson says his painter was also presented with a 15-page licence-to-occupy contract ‘‘drafted by a local legal firm’’.
‘‘This is for like five metres of scaffolding that was going up for a week — it’s an absurd process.’’
Asked to comment, planning and development GM David Wallace concedes it’s an ‘‘odd circumstance’’ where two separate licences to occupy are required.
‘‘Normally people would only have to get one licence as normally they want to occupy road reserve (footpath).’’
Wallace says licences to occupy protect the community’s interests, for example by ensuring reasonable through-routes for pedestrians while the work’s going on.
And they’re a mechanism to ensure health and safety’s being met, and any damage is fixed up by the contractor rather than falling on ratepayers.
He adds the conditions required are ‘‘relatively’’ standard and aren’t drawn up by lawyers from scratch — ‘‘I agree that would be bureaucracy gone mad’’.
Wallace adds council’s ‘‘currently looking to streamline very short-term licences to occupy to make it easier for people where we can’’.
