Building Without A Permit

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25303, 1 October 1947, Page 6

Building Without A Permit

: In deciding to order the demolition of a small house in Charles street, built without a permit, the Christchurch City Council took the only possible course. Although it is difficult to believe that anyone is now ignorant of the legal compulsion to obtain a permit before erecting or altering a building, the chairman of the council’s housing and town planning committee (Cr. G. D. Griffiths) suggested charitably that the owner had acted “in complete “ ignorance of any by-laws ”. The council’s decision would have had

to be the same even if this were indisputable; but Cr. Griffiths’s own committee alleges the contrary—that the owner went on with the building in defiance of the by-laws after they had been brought to his notice. The building by-laws define certain minimum standards which protect the public. Only in exceptional circumstances should they be relaxed. During the housing shortage the City Council has,

in fact, administered the building by-laws with practical and sympathetic discretion. At every meeting permits for temporary houses and for temporary detached rooms are granted. Eight were approved on Monday. A strict time limit, usually two years, is invariably written into the permit and the council requires the bu'ilding to be used only by the applicant’s family and not let to tenants. The council has not made it clear whether the standard of construction of the Charles street house measures up to that required for permanent dwellings. This seems at least doubtful, considering the materials used. In any case, the section on which the house is built fails in more than one respect to meet the requirements of the bylaws. Citizens will be sorry for the returned serviceman and his wife who rent the property. It is clear, from his remarks to a reporter, that the owner hopes this sympathy may protect him from the consequences of his own actions. It will work the wrong way if it works that way. If the City Council has injured him at all, the owner of the property has his redress at law; but the council cannot connive at the breaking of its own by-laws and only a very short-sighted citizen would urge it to set so dangerous a precedent.