The Sperry's were also concerned that the ramp came right beside their entire front boundary, and their garage is built on the boundary. There would be no visibility or warning when they reversed or drove out of their garage. A car driver coming down the ramp would not see them until too late. The applicant proposed a convex mirror on a post to give some visibility.
This created more objections as it meant, instead of the pleasantly landscaped public footpath in front of their house with a flowering banksia tree adjacent their garage and the 4 steps up to the path, there would be a 3 m wide concrete drive along their entire front boundary and an ugly Armco, or similar safety fence also the length of their frontage, and the tree goes with an ugly post and convex mirror replacing it. It is unacceptable and selfish, they said, for the applicant to cause such adverse affects on their house and its setting and their safety and amenity.
Mr Garnett said over his period of many years residency, at No.1 on the esplanade, he had seen service and construction trucks using the last section of the esplanade from the foreshore reserve up to the cul-de-sac. Mostly they cannot turn around and have to reverse all the way down the hill from the end back to the foreshore outside his place where they can turn.
Mr Markham is across the cul-de-sac from the Sperry's. He said:
* the drawings are incomplete. They nominate a fence on the side of the access but not what it is. A heavy Armco vehicle structure would be needed that occupies more space than shown and would be ugly.
* The concrete ramp would have to be cantilevered in part out from the rock shelf to get the width, the drawings don't show that.
* The width is only 3 m plus the kerb, it is really only a single lot driveway.
* At the bottom of the ramp it has to merge with the Sperry's garage drive crossing. The 1:6 crossfall shown is too steep for cars and definitely for trucks to negotiate. There would be danger of tipping over. Changing the crossfall would prevent access to Sperry's garage.
* The crossfall will be a potential ankle-twist for pedestrians.
* The sewer main and the stormwater main are next to the rock shelf. The drawings do not show how the proposal can connect to them.
* The increased run-off may be more than the capacity of the existing stormwater sump outside No.6 of the esplanade.
* Already downhill sheet flow in storms causes problems/flooding of esplanade properties. If the drainage does not work, or blocks, the ramp will collect a large volume of stormwater and it will cascade into the cul-de-sac and into the houses on the downhill side. Mr Markham has had that previously, this must make it worse.
* If the proposal is allowed, Mr Markham said it needs a re-design of No.7 Holden St to get vehicle access through it to the subject site.
* Lot 55 is the only back yard space for No.7 Holden and the proposal deletes it. The Holden St house will have only its upper deck for outside recreation. The proposed house and carport occupies the only level space on lot 55, the rest of it is a series of rock shelves, so the new house will have only the terrace outside its front door and the balcony at the upper floor for outdoor recreation. This is like medium density housing and Zone 2(a2) is for detached houses only, flats and other medium and high density residential are prohibited.
11 Ms Laidlaw noted the minimum area for new subdivision is 550 sq m, so the subject lot is half the size expected for the future in Northwood. The lot itself is a difficult shape with difficult topography to design any house and have a yard space. The actual level area is only about 160 sq m and constitutes the effective lot size. This is demonstrated by the house and carport occupying the only flat land on the lot, and the rest being rock shelves dropping about 3 m in a distance of 5 m. The front setback requirement to Kelly's Esplanade is 7.5 m and the balcony to the living area overhangs it by 2 m. The front wall of the house is on the 7.5 m requirement, but the carport is fully within the front setback.
12 In difficult terrain it is not unusual for a council to allow a carport in a front setback and that is not seen as a reason for refusal. But it demonstrates the difficulty this small lot has in providing reasonable and useable accommodation for a detached house. That is an on site amenity issue.
13 The provision of vehicle access to the carport is an external impact on the neighbours and on the public interest. The applicant says the Public Roads Act gives a right of access from the esplanade reservation, the question is, should vehicular access be allowed in this case? The applicant says the Sperry's have landscaped and "privatised" the esplanade public reservation as their own entry pathway that they share with users of the public path. The applicant has rights to use it too.
14 When the Council approved the renovations to No.7 Holden St, the plans of this proposal were included on the drawings. The Council approved lot 54 without any requirement for consolidation with lot 55, so the Council must have been OK with lot 54 having no back yard. The respondent submitted the Council refused Lot 55 when it approved lot 54 so that submission cannot be presumed.
15 Mr Hallam said the proposed access is required to have 300 mm clearance on both sides of the 3 m minimum width proposed. In the most critical areas at the bottom of the ramp where it is hard against the rock face on Sperry's front boundary there is no room for a car and a pedestrian to pass. This would be a shared zone and requires extra caution in design to accommodate pedestrians and vehicles. Apart from that AS/NZS2890.1-2004 for straight ramps cl 2.5.2 requires 3.6 m width clear of the rock face and the vehicle safety fence. That cantilevers the ramp further out from the rock shelf and increases the transition gradients and crossfall at the cul-de-sac. Also it will have to be signposted 10 kph speed limit as a shared zone.
16 Mr West said a shared zone has to go through the Roads & Traffic Authority and this does not. It is a driveway in a road reservation and only council consent is needed. Mr Hallam disagreed and said it would be a shared zone.
17 It was put to Mr West that the ramp has to be seen as a public road and shared zone to have the legal protection of persons using it amongst vehicles. Also No.5 James and No. 9 Kelly's may want to use it. Mr West said it could be signposted "access to No.7 only". But that would not prevent others using it, and just adds another sign to the "10 kph" and convex mirror on a post outside the Sperry's.
18 It was put to him if it is access only for No.7, the turnaround in James Rd is for its exclusive use and is a "privatisation" of a public reservation by No.7. He agreed it may be seen as that, but the works will provide a better walkway for pedestrians by eliminating the steps adjacent the Sperry's garage at the cul-de-sac. It was put to him it was no safer as the crossfall is unacceptable for vehicles and pedestrians. Mr West said the 1:6 crossfall is for a very short distance on a 10 kph speed limit and is safe.
19 Mr Hallam said the applicable RTA Guidelines cl 3.8.5 in a shared zone requires a min-max crossfall of 2%-5% for pedestrians, and prefers 3%. That is a range of 1:50 to 1:20, so 1:6 is not a safe walking surface.
20 Mr West said that the 1:6 already exists at the foot of the existing steps on the public path outside the Sperry garage, so the proposal is no different. He added that Kelly's Esplanade from the foreshore to the cul-de-sac has no footpath and is between a rockface and a steep embankment so it is de facto a shared zone but not signposted. He thought the proposal is similar. It is however much wider than 3 m.
21 The proposal had included a parking space about halfway up the ramp, past the rock face on the Sperry's boundary, where the rock shelf of the ramp widened. The carspace would be between the ramp and hard against this part of the Sperry front boundary where there is currently grass. Mr West said he only put it there for convenience of the residents, it could be removed. He agreed anyone could use it, and they probably would in the high parking demand period in summer.
22 The applicant deleted the carspace. The point was made that since it existed as a level grass verge, drivers would use it even if not constructed.
23 The point was also made that with the tandem garage arrangement of the proposal, when the rear car in the carport wanted to get out, the front car would either have to use the turnaround and go down to the cul-de-sac, or stay in the turnaround and the rear car reverse into the cul-de-sac. It occurs to me a third option is the front car goes into the space in front of the Sperry's while the rear car uses the turnaround.
24 It was agreed by the experts that the turnaround as drawn would not allow an 85%-ile sized car to use it without at least a 3-point turn, and this is not desirable. The length of the turnaround would have to be extended uphill to minimise the manoeuvring necessary. This would mean excavation and because the turnaround would become part of the public pathway, steps would have to be introduced. Some trees would need removal too.
25 It was put to Mr Hallam that a car is only 1.9 m wide and there should be enough space for pedestrians and a car on the ramp. He said a car has wing-mirrors and is (1.9 + 0.4)= 2.3 m wide so the 350 mm each side is not enough for a person. The car would have to be hard against the rock face or the vehicle safety fence on a 3 m wide ramp to give a person any chance of passing. Also a service vehicle can be up to 2.9 m wide and that means no clearance at all. The extra 300 mm required each side is there for a reason.
26 It was put to him that the ramp would be low usage. He agreed that if only one house used it the statistics show 8-10 times a day. It was put to him there is no other way to get a vehicle to the site. He said he had not investigated that, such as, through No.7 Holden St. He added in 1906 when the subdivision was created, vehicle access was not always a consideration.
27 Mr Nash agreed that with the proposed ramp, the existing landscaping of the public pathway from the cul-de-sac up for about half its length would be removed and could not be replaced. The concrete ramp the steel safety fence and the post with convex mirror and "10 kph shared zone" sign would replace it along most of Sperry's frontage.
28 On the subject site he said it achieves 41% landscaped area when the council wants 35%. Most of the 41% being rock shelf was acceptable he said, there was some vegetation to be planted on site. He agreed that the landscape plan showed most of the landscape work off-site along the vehicle ramp, and a significant portion of that could not be done according to Mr Hallam's evidence.