Neighbour fights fast-track developer over ‘trashed’ home

Sunday, 1 June 2025

Stewart Sowman-Lund is a senior reporter covering politics, pop culture and Auckland issues.

An Auckland man living across the road from a large-scale housing development says the construction has damaged his house and ruined his life, in a case that raises questions about the long-term impacts of the fast-track process. Stewart Sowman-Lund reports.

For Matthew Gillard, the breaking point came last year when he sent his kids away and moved into a caravan.

Work had been going on across the road from his family home since late 2023 in preparation for construction of a large apartment complex on the banks of Auckland’s Ellerslie Racecourse dubbed ‘The Hill’ - and eventually it became too much.

“We basically wanted to get out,” Gillard tells the Sunday Star-Times.

“We've sent the kids off down to boarding school … because they can't live here during all of this, it's just horrible. The stress levels were through the roof, so I'm on antidepressants and living in a caravan.”

Part of Gillard’s distress is down to damages he claims his house has sustained as a result of the construction, for which he blames the developer, Fletcher Residential Ltd (FRL) - which in turn rejects those claims, and says Gillard has been “confrontational and inflammatory”.

The ongoing conflict has seen residents raising questions about the long-term impact of the fast-track process, with one legal expert acknowledging there is “reduced scope” for public input on projects that are rushed through.

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop, meanwhile, tells the Star-Times that the Government’s revised fast-track legislation still has checks and balances; cold comfort for Gillard, who feels he has exhausted all his options.

Long-running dispute

Locals first learned of The Hill when fliers arrived in letterboxes in 2022, following several years of talk about land at Ellerslie Racecourse being sold for redevelopment.

Former environment minister David Parker, who did not wish to comment for this story, had referred the project to an expert consenting panel under the Covid-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act.

Two open days were held in April 2022, attended by at least 130 people - including Gillard.

There, residents were provided high-level detail about the development and given the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback. Concerns were raised by some about the use of the fast-track process, consultation documents show.

Consent was granted in April 2023 and development of the site - which included tree-felling, earthworks and rock-breaking - started later that year.

“We [knew it was] going to be disruptive … [but] we didn’t realise quite how disruptive,” reflects Gillard.

First, there were issues with noise and sawdust. Then, he noticed damage to his property which he now believes has been caused by ongoing vibration which he showed to the Star-Times during a visit to his property - including splitting exterior panels, warped internal door frames, and sinking of the ground under his garage, meaning the door no longer fully closes.

“Basically, they've trashed our house,” claims Gillard.

He’s not the only resident blaming the construction for alleged property damage; Ian Calhaem, who also lives on the outskirts of the site, believes it’s caused displacement of the concrete tiles on his roof, with repair costs quoted at $13,000.

“I'm a forensic scientist, so you've got to say, well, all right, coincidences happen,” Calhaem tells the Star-Times. “But not [multiple instances] at the same time, which also seems to coincide with the start of the rock-breaking.”

But Fletcher considers it “unlikely” that the defects claimed by Gillard are due to the construction work.

“We have acknowledged his concerns on multiple occasions [and] many of our requests to meet with him have gone [un]answered,” a spokesperson says in a statement.

“We’d encourage Mr Gillard to pursue an insurance claim if he believes his property has been damaged as a direct result of the construction works. This process will independently assess the damage, causation and provide any relevant compensation.”

The independent report

Gillard’s perspective, though, is that there’s already been an independent assessment.

In December 2024, following repeated complaints and email exchanges with Fletcher management, he obtained his own forensic building report - a copy of which was supplied to the Star-Times.

In the report, Forensic Building Consultants Ltd “comprehensively” states that Gillard’s property “has been damaged and is still being damaged on a daily basis by prolonged and continuous vibration directly attributable to the construction activities”.

Gillard wasn’t surprised.

“They're … using 20-tonne diggers,” he says. “We're on one side of the hill and they're digging out the other side.”

Fletcher views it differently. In emails seen by the Star-Times, a senior manager for the firm told Gillard the developer did not “accept the report as being factually correct nor do we agree with the findings that the works carried out on [the] site have resulted in the damage to your property”.

Fletcher Residential tells the Star-Times it had several issues with Gillard’s building report, including that it had “a stated biased goal to point blame toward FRL and tries to confirm this throughout the report”.

The investigator had been engaged on a “predetermined position” and was commissioned to “assess and determine the extents of defects on the dwelling due to vibration caused by heavy earthworks machinery and equipment or generally poor management of the intended earthworks methodology”, the spokesperson says.

The developer also believes there are several “factually incorrect” details in the report, “including statements about a ‘relaxed approach’ and ‘failure to comply’ [with the resource consent].”

(The report was critical of what it described as Fletcher Residential’s “too little, too late” approach to addressing issues purportedly related to vibration damage.)

The report gave no consideration to the age of the property, geotechnical conditions or structural integrity relating to any alterations made to the house, Fletcher says.

Another point of contention raised by Gillard related to the lack of an initial building condition survey of his house before earthworks began.

Fletcher says these were only required where there was considered a “risk of exceeding” vibration levels, and were offered to 55 neighbouring property owners before work started - “consistent with good practice”.

Twenty-eight owners took up this offer.

Do you know more or are you affected? Contact stewart.sowmanlund@stuff.co.nz

No survey was conducted at Gillard’s property at the time as “no infringement was predicted” to affect his home.

However, he was later offered one “ahead of works planned in the road corridor” in July 2024 - months after earthworks had started at the site.

Gillard’s building report criticises this decision, saying it prevented a “benchmark” of the condition of the home being recorded prior to construction; responding to this criticism, Fletcher says it followed the rules of the consent.

In addition, vibrations recorded by traffic along Ladies Mile when no construction activity was occurring were higher than when an excavator was operating in that area, Fletcher says.

An email from Auckland Council to Gillard in January, provided by Fletcher, noted: “We do not consider that the site has been non-compliant with their consent conditions in relation to noise and vibration.”

A further statement to the Star-Times from the council’s environmental monitoring manager Robert Laulala confirms “several” inspections have been undertaken at The Hill in response to complaints.

“In general, we have found the site to be compliant with the conditions in its resource consent,” Laulala says, though an abatement notice and two infringement notices have been issued “in relation to mud tracking”.

Forensic Building Consultants Ltd tells the Star-Times it is unable to provide full comment in response to Fletcher’s rejection of its report, “outside of a formal legal process”.

“As experts engaged in reporting on this matter, we are bound by the duties of impartiality and independence under the High Court Rules of New Zealand,” said senior building consultant Glynn Robertson in response to emailed questions.

“These obligations require that our role as expert witnesses remains free from any real or perceived bias, and is not compromised by public or media commentary.”

Fast-track debate

The ongoing situation has Gillard and other residents questioning the use of fast-track legislation to speed up major developments.

Ian Calhaem - who set up his own seismometers at his house to monitor vibrations - says “in fairness to Fletcher”, the developer was constrained by the rapid pace required by the previous fast-track process; something he says raises implications for the Government’s revamped version.

“They [Fletcher] took advantage of the fast-track process. But because of that, there were things that I believe should have been done that weren't done,” he says.

When Calhaem was invited to submit to the expert panel ahead of The Hill gaining resource consent, he argued that the fast-track process curtailed consultation, with just a two-week time-frame to respond to thousands of pages of documentation.

“If eight hours per day was spent reading that equates to only two-and-a-half minutes per page,” he told the panel. “Researching and writing a response reduced this time.”

Helen Andrews, director at The Environmental Lawyers - an Auckland-based boutique law firm whose specialities include resource management and public works - says while there was less scope for consultation on fast-track projects compared to the regular process, public input could be “interrogated” further.

“The panels could hold a hearing if they thought that was necessary, but they didn't have to,” she explains.

“Once the consent is granted by an expert consenting panel … it's subject to the same enforcement and compliance regime as any other consent granted under the [Resource Management] Act.”

Labour’s iteration of the law has since been repealed, however it was used to model similar legislation by the current coalition government.

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop says the revised law includes measures aimed at limiting the potential for unintended consequences.

“Expert panels are required to seek comment from a range of relevant groups including the owners and/or occupiers of the land to which the application relates, and the adjacent land,” he tells the Star-Times.

“Under the [act], expert panels can impose conditions to manage adverse impacts.”

‘David versus Goliath’

Gillard wants Fletcher to be more responsive to his concerns, describing the conflict as a “David versus Goliath” scenario.

“The biggest piece of it is that [Fletcher is] sitting there going, ‘No, it's nothing to do with us. It wasn't our fault.’ Just admit fault,” he says.

Fletcher acknowledges that living next to a development of this scale can be disruptive, but reiterates it believes it has not done anything wrong.

“We want to reassure our neighbours we place the utmost importance on limiting adverse construction effects on the community,” a spokesperson says.

“We know earthworks are hard to live close to, however we are nearing the end of the most significant of these.”

When complete, The Hill will consist of about 370 residential units.

The first of these, in what will be a multi-storey apartment building called Belvedere, are available for pre-purchase now - with asking prices over $3 million.

What do you think? Email sundayletters@stuff.co.nz. Please include your full name and address.