The controversial man-made mountain, and the furious businessman who's been ordered to clean it up

Saturday, 8 March 2025

Gareth Williams is one party on the receiving end of an Environment Court clean up order over a man made mountain of dirt in East Tamaki.

An enormous pile of earth in East Tamaki is at the centre of Environment Court enforcement orders.

Auckland businessman Gareth Williams says he’s been portrayed as causing the issues, but told Stuff he’s been trying to rectify them.

Williams says he had set out to run a start-up business recycling topsoil, but the venture has gone “horribly wrong”.

You can’t miss it when you drive down Smales Rd in Auckland’s East Tamaki.

The pile, a man-made mountain of soil, is enormous. It towers over neighbouring sites - a car yard to its left and a petrol station to the right.

It was once the workplace of Auckland businessman Gareth Williams, the sole director of Eco Earth NZ.

The mound of earth, last estimated to be 15mhigh, is towering over a nearby Mobil station, which has closed part of its premises.

Williams’ vision? A topsoil recycling company.

But issues at the East Tamaki site he once occupied are now the subject of Environment Court enforcement orders, sought by Auckland Council. Judge Melinda Dickey, in a ruling issued last November, called the mound unstable, steep and the source of significant overspill.

This week, Williams agreed to meet Stuff near the Pakuranga Rugby League Club clubrooms in east Auckland and, for the first time, spoke at length about the situation at Smales Rd.

“I've just wanted to obviously have a business, which can feed my family, and a business that would be able to produce topsoil, which was recycled - pretty simple.”

The court orders, against Williams himself, his company Eco Earth NZ and his landlord - New Zealand New Oak Property - call for the submission of a remediation plan to, in part, remove fill and material to stabilise the site “so it does not present risks and adverse effects to adjoining sites”.

But Williams says he and his team at Eco Earth have been portrayed as the ones who “created the problem”.

Gareth Williams says his start-up business set out to recycle topsoil, but the venture has gone “horribly wrong”.

“But we've gone in to help remediate it and still to this day have offered to remediate it,” he says.

He describes Auckland Council's interactions with him as “horrible”, adding Eco Earth has been “blamed for a lot”.

“And then obviously thinking that we'd be doing them a favour by helping them remediate, and work and do certain things around the site.”

An earlier decision enforcing interim court orders, made last August, states Eco Earth and Williams are responsible for the works on site.

Material from the site has spilled over onto neighbouring businesses. One decided to leave, while the local Mobil has closed its car wash.

But Williams has contended neither he, nor Eco Earth, are responsible for the illegal fill on the property and the court orders required the rectification of works completed before he took over 28 Smales Rd.

Williams claims there was already a large quantity of fill, mixed with concrete and shrubbery, when he first took over the site and he was trying to “sift through” the material. Topsoil was also coming onto the site.

Williams says he had an arrangement with the landlord that would see him remediate existing issues at the property, with a view to getting the site to a stage where he could run his topsoil recycling business.

“We’d gone into to repair the property and then hopefully trade a business out of it.”

He says he has spent hundreds or thousands of dollars trying to remediate the existing issues with the site and has not been paid for the work.

Stuff approached the landlord for a response to Williams’ comments but, via its lawyer, it declined to comment.

Williams says he has been portrayed as creating the problem at the site but says he was trying to make the property workable.

Judge Dickey’s November orders refer to a dispute between Eco Earth and NZ New Oak over the validity of its lease and a requirement to remove fill from the site by May 2024.

However, she ruled the lease arrangement was not relevant to the enforcement orders.

Those orders relate to issues on the site that saw one neighbour, car dealership 2 Cheap Cars, evacuate employees from its yard and another, Mobil, close its car wash.

Williams claims the visible spillage onto Mobil station site is partly due to Auckland Council instructing him to cut back the toe of the mound.

And what about Auckland Council wanting a remediation plan? “I bet they do, but they're not paying for it”.

However, he says he hasn’t completely walked away from the site, either.

“We haven’t said we’ve wiped our hands of it, but I wouldn’t go near that place unless I’m paid to date … and I would want 50% up front for the work needed.”.

Auckland Council’s compliance manager, Adrian Wilson, told Stuff the council investigated “unlawful activity at the site and as a result, an enforcement order has been granted requiring works to cease and remedial works to occur”.

“As this matter is still before the court, it would not be appropriate for the council to respond to Mr Williams’ claims,” Wilson says.

Williams expects the site will sit stagnant through Winter and into late-2025 - a far cry from the topsoil recycling company he’d hoped to establish.

“I thought it was a good idea but then it's obviously gone horribly wrong,” he says.

“We're a start-up business that's now involved in a major case.”