‘Let them live their life’: Minister tells council ‘clipboard wielders’ to let family build their home

Friday, 26 June 2026

On Thursday, Stuff reported how William Lamers and Erika Koderich bought a $432,000, 4-hectare lifestyle block in Springston, Canterbury to build a four-bedroom home on, only for their plans to be halted by a rule change.

Lamers and Koderich said they were not aware of the rule change and were not notified by Selwyn District Council staff despite getting sign-offs for a septic tank and sheds. The council said the changes were publicly notified and that there could be no exceptions.

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour now says the council’s “clipboard wielders” need to reverse their position and let the family build.

However, the council isn’t budging, saying “there is no discretion to waive or make exceptions to resource consent requirements on a case‑by‑case basis”.

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour says a council’s “clipboard wielders” need to reverse their position and allow a family to build their dream home on a lifestyle block and “live their life”.

“They are meant to serve the community, not the bureaucracy,” Seymour said in a statement on Thursday afternoon.

But Selwyn District Council isn’t budging. More on that below.

Seymour’s comments come after Stuff reported how William Lamers and Erika Koderich bought a $432,000, 4-hectare lifestyle block in Springston, Canterbury and invested countless hours and tens of thousands of dollars preparing to build a four-bedroom home, only for their plans to be halted by a rule change they said they did not know about until they applied for a building consent last year.

The rule change, implemented months after their 2020 purchase, stipulates that a house can only be built on highly productive land if the property is 20ha or more in size.

Lamers and Koderich said they were told by the council to apply for a resource consent. They said they were later advised by a planner that the consent was a 50/50 chance at best, and would cost a minimum of $60,000 to $70,000, which they could not afford.

In a response earlier this week, the council said it acknowledged the difficult situation the family was in, but that the rule changes were publicly notified, and that the council had to follow the rules and could not make exceptions outside of its processes.

Following Stuff’s reporting, Seymour, the Minister for Regulation, said the council needed to “reverse its decision”.

“New Zealand can't be the sort of country where a family works hard, saves, and invests in their future only to have clipboard wielders at the local council turn their lives upside down.”

Seymour said the law creating the problems, the Resource Management Act (RMA), was being replaced, and that ACT was making sure that property rights were at the heart of that.

“If Selwyn Council supports their local community, they’d take our lead and let this family live their life.”

ACT MP Simon Court, the Under-Secretary to the Minister responsible for RMA reform (Chris Bishop), echoed his party leader’s sentiments.

“If property rights mean anything then there must be a very high bar before councils can pull the rug like this,” Court said.

“These people bought the land, followed the rules, and acted in good faith before they had the rug pulled on their dream without even the courtesy of proper notice.”

Court said the RMA enabled councils to make “insane decisions that tread on property rights willy nilly”.

“That’s why we’re replacing the RMA with a planning system based on the enjoyment of property rights which will bring some big property rights shifts.”

Stuff approached the Selwyn District Council for a response and asked if it would reconsider its position on the family’s situation.

Its executive director of building, planning and regulatory Robert Love said:

“We recognise this is a difficult and frustrating situation for the landowners.

“Councils consult on and set their District Plans within the framework established by central government legislation. Once in place, legislation including the Resource Management Act requires us to administer the plan consistently across the district, and there is no discretion to waive or make exceptions to resource consent requirements on a case‑by‑case basis.”

Previously, Love said the rule changes were part of the district plan review - a full, 10-year, significant undertaking based on community feedback, data and modelling, that were publicly notified in 2020, including through submissions, hearings and public decisions.

“Changes apply across the entire district and to many thousands of properties,” he said.

“It would not be feasible for [the] council to assess the implications of every rule change on every individual property, anticipate the future development intentions of landowners, and directly engage with them.”

Love said the identification of highly productive land was directed by the Ministry of Environment’s national policy statement - a nationwide, interim framework.

It was not a classification made on a site-by-site basis by councils, he said.

Asked earlier this week if council would be willing to assist or explore other options with Lamers and Koderich, Love said the district plan set the regulatory framework that the council must apply consistently across all landowners.

“Council must apply the rules fairly across the district, and cannot make exceptions to the requirements outside of those processes.”

On Thursday, prior to the update from Selwyn District Council, Lamers and Koderich said they were hopeful the statements from Seymour and Court might encourage the council to let them build, but they were not counting their chickens.

“I’d like to think there’s a bit of hope coming from Seymour,” Lamers said.

“I’m not banking on it. You can’t bank on anything these days.”

He said he was thankful that ministers had recognised their situation.

“It’d be nice to see some change.

“It makes me feel a little bit hopeful, but until we can build, it’s just hope.”