By Tom McRae
A group of Rotorua homeowners are left wondering who to turn to after their houses began sinking.
The land their homes are on has been declared unsafe, and they are being taken to court.
But the residents say when they bought into their subdivision they were not aware of any problems.
“The house keeps on moving, when it rains the house hydraulics, the roof goes off like a rifle shot, wakes you up in the middle of the night,” says homeowner Grant Collins.
He is one of a group of homeowners who bought in a Rotorua subdivision four years ago.
But the land began sinking and four houses have suffered damage. The owners say the council knew there was a problem before it gave out building consents, which allowed construction to begin on their homes.
“The duty of care we've got from the Rotorua District Council has been absolutely bloody pathetic. The chief executive advertisers regularly and he says come to Rotorua and live the dream. Dream? It's been a bloody nightmare,” says Mr Collins.
The foundations are cracking, and this is causing huge cracks in our home.
The Davis family do not feel safe in their home.
“You're angry, you're depressed, it's not fun. It's been going on for over a year and we can't move on, we're stuck,” says Katy Davis.
The 80-site subdivision was determined safe to build on by geotech engineers.
“The geotechnical work wasn't sufficient to have disclosed the fact there is some subsidence so we granted the consent unaware of these issues, we then subsequently issued building consents,” says Peter Guerin, chief executive of the Rotorua District Council.
The homeowners are now worried they will be stuck with massive legal bills and houses that are uninhabitable.
“We can't walk away, we don't have a building consent [or] a code of compliance,” says Mr Collins. “If they want to continue with this idiocy, this lunacy, whatever you want to call it, yeah I'll go to court and fight them.”
The council believes it will be cleared of liability by the court, and that responsibility lies with the engineers who declared the land safe to begin with. As for the homeowners, they just want someone to take responsibility and ensure the residents are properly compensated.
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