Jess Parker/Stuff
Riders are due to be in action over Easter at the Top of the South motocross champs in Motupipi, Golden Bay. (File photograph of another event)
Some residents of a Golden Bay settlement say they are shocked to hear of the planned return of a motocross event this weekend. “It’s really noisy and horrible,” said resident Paddy Brennan, adding that she believed such events on the Harwood property off Packard Rd had been silenced permanently several years ago. “This just drags it all up again.” Brennan was referring to a March 2012 letter from then Tasman District mayor Richard Kempthorne that says in part that “motocross events are . effectively prevented from being held at that site”. That letter from Kempthorne came after the council obtained a legal opinion, which followed an Ombudsman’s finding on the long-running matter.
A dispute with Tasman District Council has left Motueka homeowner Jacqui Griffiths washing her dishes in the bath and unable to work. She wants more than an apology.
It was the start of a journey that led her to make submissions to the Government and the Tasman District Council about finding practical solutions to the land-use issues that prevented tiny homes from entering the market as an affordable option. Last October, she learnt that the consultation period for the Tasman Resource Management Plan (TRMP) would take two-years to find solutions. She wrote to Tasman Mayor Tim King and told him the situation was an emergency that needed addressing immediately.
LUZ ZUNIGA
Big Tiny House Expo organiser Julie Jacobson highlighted the importance of discussing alternative housing solutions, especially during the present crisis in New Zealand.
Martin De Ruyter/Stuff
Terry Grooby looks over his boundary fence in Motueka at a former classroom that blocks the sun from his home of 50 years.
Knocked back by the Tasman District Council, Dean Grooby plans to ask the Ombudsman to intervene over a building in Motueka next door to the home of his dying father. Diagnosed with cancer and expected to have fewer than two years left to live, Dean Grooby’s father, Terry, 84, wanted to enjoy that limited time in his Courtney St home of 50 years but says the “monstrosity of a building” on the other side of the fence is blocking most of his sun. It is also causing him to lose sleep.