Property developer slammed in Environment Court says he is starting a 'revolution' against housing bureaucracy

Saturday, 20 August 2016

Property developer Augustine EE Kouh Lau

An Auckland property developer has been accused by neighbours of creating 'slumsvilles' in desirable city suburbs by jamming relocatable houses onto sites and riding roughshod over planning laws.

Augustine Lau faces prosecution for carrying out work at several Auckland properties and failing to comply with the Resource Management Act.

Augustine Lau is developing this Paremoremo Rd site, which neighbours have described as a 'slumsville'.

A judge has delivered a damning verdict in two judgements released this month by the Environment Court. It found Lau, who claims to have developed 500 properties around Auckland, undertook significant earthworks at two waterfront properties at Waiwera, subdivided a Mt Albert property, converted a garage into a 'house' and relocated houses in Paremoremo - all without seeking resource consent.

Auckland Council issued abatement notices against Lau's properties in the north, south and central areas of Auckland. He appealed to the Environment Court, but this month a judge dismissed his appeals.

* Failed property developer a devotee of US motivator Tony Robbins**

In a decision published this month in relation to a development at Paremoremo, Lau was accused of 'jamming' relocatable houses onto land and occupying them with tenants.

The court said there appears to have been no or very little consideration of either building consent requirements or the Resource Management Act.

The Court has called for urgent geotechnical, site stability, slippage and erosion reports, plus remediation plans, before considering final orders for the rehabilitation of the site are considered.

'Those circumstances which could only be described as some of the most serious this Court has seen.'

The Paremoremo development had created a 'slumsville', according to a neighbour.

Lau denied he was a 'slumlord', and said the issue was with the 'inefficiency' at Auckland Council, and the 25-year-old Resource Management Act was no longer fit for purpose.

He said: 'They can say I'm a slumlord or anything they want, but I don't care. The council is bloody lazy. I don't care what the judge says. I know that under the current rules I'm not favourable at all. But I'm the first person to do the revolution.'

Paremoremo Rd resident Kim Ward, editor of community newsletter Pear Publisher, said Lau jams as many houses onto property as he can so he can create tenancies.

'He uses the argument that we're short of houses in Auckland. But when you put a house onto a property and the Council doesn't even know if there's a sceptic tank associated with it you've cut a whole row of pine tress down, don't even know if they've dug out the root system, there's no geotech reports, the houses could collapse in a sinkhole for all her knew and he could clearly care less.

'He dug the whole ground up, there was silt run off that wasn't being captured it's filled up the stream down the bottom.

At another development at Waiwera, the court found Lau was responsible for endangering indigenous vegetation at a waterfront property development at Waiwera. The court said this represents a danger to any person on the land and 'needs to be addressed as a matter of importance and urgency'.

'Significant' earthworks occurred when Lucky Wu Ltd, a company directed by Lau and property owner Meijuan Chen took over a waterfront property in Weranui Rd. The Court saw the actions of Lau and Lucky Wu, on the land owned by Qiufen Lu, as being 'extremely serious and dangerous'.

The judgement stated Lau had distanced himself from any of the actions that had occurred on the site on the basis that he was no longer the director of the development firm Lucky Wu Limited after 30 September 2013.

But the court concluded that Lau was 'involved in the operation and management of the earthworks and vegetation removal until at least October 2013, by which time the majority of damage on the site had occurred'.

Contractors referred enquiries to Lau, and he continued to attend meetings with the Auckland Council at Orewa into October 2013.

The seven hectare Waiwera property on Weranui Rd is described as a 'sensitive coastal site' in the court papers.

A neighbour of the property, who didn't want to be named, said: 'It's been a horrible experience. I don't think any of the neighbours would say it has been fun.'

'Significant' earthworks at the site undertaken by companies associated with Lau had seen the area become unstable, and large rocks and trees falling over.

Lau represented himself and two business partners at the proceedings held earlier this year, and was found to be 'evasive' and 'disingenuous' when giving evidence and questioning witnesses.

The court found Lau had access to a 'number of cell phones' and later denied he was responsible for exchanges of texts with council officers.

'Given what has been described to date one might consider that Mr Lau had little or no understanding of how the resource management system works in New Zealand. That is not the case. Mr Lau has considerable experience in developments, telling the Court he had been involved in over 500 developments in New Zealand involving 2-10 lot subdivisions over 24 years,' the judgement said.

The Environment Court had dismissed Lau's appeals against abatement notices issued by Auckland Council to Augustine Lau relating to a number of properties in the north, south and central areas of Auckland

Auckland Council resource consents manager, Steve Pearce said: 'This decision is currently in an appeal period so we are unable to comment further at this time.'