Valérie Riley
154 A Upland Road
Remuera
Auckland
25 February 2011
To
Whom It May Concern
We built our house with swimming pool in
2004 and received our pool permit until May 2009, whereupon the Auckland City
Council requested another inspection.
This was performed and to our great surprise, the officer informed us
that further work was necessary. This
news was unexpected as everything had been built strictly following the
regulations.
We completed some of the smaller jobs
required but were waiting for the Auckland City Council to get back to us
regarding the fencing, as the officer had declared our concrete walls were no
longer adequate as children may climb the neighbour’s fence and jump over our
wall. This really surprised us as
nothing had changed around the property since we built the house. We submitted a letter in August 2009, with
the help of our architect, to explain that everything was built following
regulations in 2004, and since we had received a pool permit upon completion,
why was our pool no longer compliant?
It took the Auckland City Council 7 months
to respond to us with a completely different story. They now required we build a fence around the pool and condemned
our windows which faced the pool. Many
emails were sent back and forth and by the end of August we had discovered
through quotes that it would cost us approximately $20,000 to make our pool
compliant. We felt this was ridiculous
as all our windows had latches 185cm from the floor and we would not be able to
use the pool properly or even access parts of it for cleaning with a glass
fence around it.
A search on the internet revealed the story
of a group in the Waitakere’s who had won their pool case against their City
Council in 2006. I managed to contact
Gary Osborne from the Pool Owner’s Action Group and joined the group for the
small fee of $110.00. From then, Gary
helped me write to the CEO of the Auckland City Council as well as two
politicians in Wellington. He also
talked to the Auckland City Council on my behalf obtaining answers to the
questions that we had.
The following December, we received another
pool inspection from two senior council officers. They recognized that the pool area was too small to fence and
they were happy with our windows facing the pool and the existing latches. They suggested a small glass panel be placed
on top of our wall which cost a total of $2,000.
We have now received our pool permit, and
we can still enjoy our swimming pool thanks to Gary and the Pool Owners Action
Group. The membership was well worth it
and Gary’s advice was very welcome after being practically bullied by the first
council officer on several occasions.
We would recommend the Pool Owner Action
Group to anyone in a similar dilemma.
It saved us a considerable sum of money and their advice would be as
good as any lawyers. Gary has a
remarkable understanding of the city council’s procedures and rules.
Please do not hesitate to contact me on my
mobile (021 944 621) should you wish to discuss further.
Yours sincerely
Valérie Riley
