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After two fires gutted buildings at Gulf Harbour Country Club recently, Auckland Council was forced to step in to make the privately owned site safe.
The country club was closed by its owner Long River Investments almost a year ago and has been vandalised and graffitied since.
The two suspicious fires, on May 18 and 20, are under investigation by Fire and Emergency NZ and police. The first reduced the former Pro Shop building to ruins, and the second destroyed large parts of the roof and interior of the main clubhouse.
Council’s compliance team leader, Paul Northover, says following the fires, council’s first port of call was Wayne Bailey, director of Long River Investments. Repeated attempts to contact him proved fruitless.
As a result, council invoked Section 129 of the Building Act so it could issue a Dangerous Building Notice and demolish the remaining structure, which could have collapsed at any time following the fires.
“Members of the public were accessing the buildings, and it had become a health and safety issue,” Northover said.
Tonkin and Taylor engineers and council compliance officers inspected the buildings on May 21, concluding that “repair may not be economically viable and demolition needed to be considered”.
Demolition began on May 23, after safety fencing and 24-hour security was put in place.
Northover said getting the warrant to enable demolition, which had to be signed off by council’s chief executive or delegated authority, was not what caused the two-day delay before demolition could begin.
“We had to serve notice on the property owner, and also became aware that the tower at the end of the building is full of essential cellphone equipment servicing Gulf Harbour, which had to be kept operational,” he said.
The tower is not considered unsafe in its current state, and was therefore not demolished. Staff from Spark were onsite during the demolition to work on equipment in the tower.
Ward Demo was contracted to demolish the buildings, guided by council and the engineers’ report.
Who will end up paying for the process, which took around a week, has yet to be determined. Initially, council (ratepayers) pay contractors, including security guards, but Northover says all those costs are recoverable from the owner under the Building Act. The costs also can be placed as a charge on the property’s title.
A recent attempt to put Long River Investments into liquidation failed, but numerous other creditors are waiting in the wings.
Lobby group Keep Whangaparāoa’s Green Spaces (KWGS) says the demolition has left its position unchanged – it believes that the golf course must be retained and restored and that it can be a viable business.
KWGS is organising a public meeting, with details expected to be confirmed soon.
The investigation
• Fire and Emergency (FENZ) investigate the cause of the fire. Waitemata assistant area commander Shaun Pilgrim says that may never be known as the state of the buildings hampered investigations. “Arson is a very serious crime and proving it has to be 100 percent accurate,” he says. “Determining the cause and finding exactly where the fire started will be very difficult and it is likely the conclusion could be “undetermined with a high probability of deliberately lit”.
• Police focus on who may be responsible, and that investigation is ongoing. Police ask anyone with footage or information that may assist to visit https://www.police.govt.nz/use-105 or phone 105 quoting file number 240521/3517. Information can also be provided anonymously on 0800 555 111.
