Neighbours criticise building checks

Neighbours criticise building checks Ravin and Shehzrazine Mehra say their property is subsiding after a home was built next door. It should have told him to correct the problem first. "There was no subsidence at all where the cut was made [near the fence]. She contacted the council's building consultant and was told the builder should have erected a retaining wall near the fence. "The council should have stopped him at the time when they were going further with the build. "That their fence moved because of the excavation is a fact. They have also surrounded the fence posts with concrete to support them and provided garden mix. "No corners are being cut, no shortcuts taken, no shoddy practices being carried out; in short, all is proceeding as it should be. The Auckland Council inspected the wall construction, approved and signed off the same," he stresses. Mr Hamilton says much of the area is plastic clay, which moves as land dries or becomes wetter. Council compliance and inspections manager Ian Todd says the builder "completed the backfilling with drainage metal. There was not enough space for mechanical compacting but they did it in layers. So now, he doesn't have [room] to do the compaction. No damage has been caused to Mr Mehra's property sufficient to cause land to move around the concrete on the property. Now the Mehras say their flowerbed, near the fence, has sunk about 8cm. Parts of their backyard slump and the lawn's edge has moved 3cm from surrounding paving. Meanwhile, building work continued. The builder was given a seven-day notice to correct the problem. When the notice lapsed, the consultants asked the council to issue another notice. "The person who bought the land next to us came to us one day and said he needed resource consent because he was going to be building a little closer to our boundary on the back left-hand side. Mrs Mehra says she kept asking the council for updates because she was afraid nothing was being done to secure her land. On April 26, the council told the Mehras there was no need to issue another notice as the "contractor has already shown good faith by undertaking remedial work on your property". The council says a contractor will return at the end of the project to assess if any damage has been caused. To me, that's an excuse. " Property owner Gavin Hamilton says everything his builder did passed council inspection. Neighbours criticise building checks Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 18/05/2012