Rejection of Brothel Application Sends Warning Message to Council

As a submitter to today’s ByLaw hearing I am delighted that the North Shore City Council has rejected the application by the Brazilian Love Motel for a brothel licence.

This decision meets the demands of the overwhelming number of residents and businesses operators who made submissions to the council.

However this decision does not overturn the resource consent granted by council staff for an 11 room ‘hire by the hour’ motel.

Council will have its hands full as it tries to ensure that the premises are not in fact being used for protitution – and the cost of such monitoring will fall on ratepayers.

This whole unsatisfactory process raise real issues as to when the council should ask for residents and businesses views before approving potentially contentious development applications.

It also raises questions about why the elected council has delegated the power to make such decisions to council staff rather than to Hearing Commissioners who are elected members.

In this brothel case council staff have been making all the decisions on resource consent, public notification and building consent. It was only at this very late stage that elected members and the public became involved.

This situation must never be allowed to happen again.

Meanwhile, new information brought forward today suggests that the resouce consent approval for the Motel may have been granted on the basis of incorrect information on the number of carparks available for this activity. It appears that only 4 carparks are available which is ten short of the required number.

Such a discrepancy should require the consent to be cancelled and a new application made.

If that is not possible the council has power to change the conditions of consent in relation to the carparkinhg shortfall.

ENDS

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