11 Sept 2023
Section 139 must be read as authorising certification only of activities that comply with the district plan as described in the plan; it does not allow issuance of certificates of compliance to validate existing uses that contravene plan rules under s10, and the council's 1999 certificates were unlawfully issued and are set aside.
20 Jul 2022
Because each party had some success in the substantive proceeding and no new circumstances were identified that would justify departing from the normal position, the interests of justice required that costs lie where they fall.
4 Nov 2021
The first certificate (13 December 2018, reissued 31 January 2019) was quashed because it was issued on manifestly inadequate information contrary to the duty under s139 RMA to have sufficient information to compare the proposal with plan rules; however the airstrip is a permitted Service Activity (alternatively Commercial) under the District Plan and the Council's later certificate was valid provided compliance with the Plan's noise standards (r4.9.11); councils should seek leave before actively participating in judicial review of their own RMA decisions.
29 Apr 2021
The Court held that "totally without merit" is satisfied where proceedings are bound to fail; the High Court correctly identified three qualifying proceedings (subdivision consent litigation, boundary adjustment litigation, compliance certificate litigation) as totally without merit, but erred to the extent it imported broader vexatious factors into the threshold inquiry and failed to particularise exceptional circumstances justifying a five-year restraint; accordingly the five-year order was set aside and substituted with a three-year restraint, the appeal otherwise dismissed.
12 Jul 2019
Leave to appeal was refused because the appellant had succeeded in the Court of Appeal which set aside the certificate of compliance, the noise issues were narrow and context-specific with concurrent findings below, and the matter will be reconsidered under a different plan or new process, so the statutory leave criteria were not met.
1 Sept 2017
Costs shall lie where they fall because the merits were evenly balanced, the plaintiff's conduct and late withdrawals did not justify an adverse costs order, there was no probative evidence of noise effects on the plaintiff's members and alleged non-compliance with the certificate conditions was not directly material to the costs exercise.
30 Jun 2017
The certificate of compliance was flawed procedurally but because the errors were minor or mitigated by undertakings and the applicants acted in good faith, the proper remedy was to direct the Auckland Council to reconsider the decision under s 139 RMA while leaving the certificate in effect pending that reconsideration pursuant to s 4(5C) Judicature Amendment Act 1972; reconsideration must be on the basis of the planning instruments at the date of the application.
28 Jun 2017
Two material legal errors justified judicial intervention short of quashing: (1) the application objectively failed to disclose an existing 84 m2 building relevant to the permitted activity classification, and (2) the Council did not transparently assess discharges of lead to land in relation to s 15 RMA and applicable plan rules; other challenges (noise methodology, wastewater, participant numbers, earthworks) were either adequately addressed, contextually remediable or evaluative matters for the Council, so the certificate is referred back for reconsideration rather than quashed.
13 Apr 2017
The interim application was refused because the shed, used in the interim for storage of farming and dwelling-related equipment, is a permitted activity under AUP rule H19.8.1 (activity status of buildings follows the activity they accommodate); the rule is clear and does not require an additional proportionality/scale assessment; a certificate of compliance is optional and not a precondition to constructing a permitted building; given construction was already underway and safety concerns, the balance of convenience favoured the respondents.
4 Apr 2014
The Court found a material change in circumstances (re-zoning from heavy industrial to mixed use) that caused the covenant to impede reasonable use in an unforeseen way; the proposed modification would not substantially injure the respondent because it holds a five‑year certificate of compliance and applicants undertook not to withhold approval of respondent's consented plans; on balancing the public and private interests the Court exercised its discretion to modify the covenant (rather than extinguish) as set out in the amended form.