Doctor faces court action from council

Press, 10 October 1989, Page 1

Doctor faces court action from council

By

TOM METCALFE

The Riccarton Borough Council will seek a court injunction today to shut down Christchurch’s second after-hours medical centre, which opened two weeks ago.

The council says the Len Kitson Medical Centre, on Clyde Road, has been built and run in defiance of its planning laws.

A meeting of the council’s town planning committee last evening instructed staff to go ahead with injunction proceedings threatened in a letter to the centre’s owner, Dr Len Kitson, two days after the centre opened late hours on September 25.

The centre has been open normal hours since May. Staff told the committee that Dr Kitson was granted a building permit in June last year for a residence and small medical surgery at the Clyde Road site. The medical surgery was permitted as a home occupation, an approved use for the site, zoned Residential A.

A recent site inspection had shown that the medical centre broke three requirements of a home occupation surgery:

• The work area was significantly larger than the 30 sq m allowed.

• Some people employed in the centre did not live on site.

• Its publicly announced hours were 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., Monday to Friday, and 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The District Scheme set limits of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday.

The medical centre would probably also cause an increase in traffic that would bother nearby residents, the committee was told.

The Mayor of Riccarton, Mr Richard Harrington, said at the meeting that Dr Kitson had tried to fool the council by building a full-blown medical centre using a permit for a home surgery. Dr Kitson was in Greymouth last evening, and could not be reached by “The Press.” A spokesman for him, Mr Hugh de Lacy, said he had not deliberately flouted the planning requirements. Dr Kitson had been forced to open late hours because his patients were not being accepted by the Bealey Avenue after-hours surgery. The Bealey Avenue surgery, Christchurch’s other after-hours surgery, is owned by 185 Christchurch doctors.

Mr de Lacy said Dr Kitson had no part in it and it had refused to accept his patients unless he joined. “He’s caught between the planning requirements and his Hippo : cratic oath,” said Mr de Lacy. He rejected the suggestion that Dr Kitson had planned from the start to build a medical centre at Clyde Road under the guise of a

home surgery. Dr Kitson still intended to live at the centre, and had recently sold his house, said Mr de Lacy. The service had become so popular that it had grown out of hand.

Dr Kitson has asked the council for six months interim approval of the medical centre while he finds new premises that comply with planning requirements.

But the committee decided last evening that it was not legally able to permit the centre to continue, even temporarily. Dr Kitson had been advised of the requirements on a number of occasions, staff said. Last November the council ordered builders on the site to stop work because the building had departed from plans lodged with the building permit application.

There was also concern that the intended use would exceed the home occupation definition. Work started again when Dr Kitson submitted new plans and assured the council that he would comply with the home occupation requirements. Dr Kitson owns 80 per cent of Kitson Medical Services, which has established 17 medical centres in New Zealand since 1984.