Green couple see red

BY RYAN EVANS

A couple building an eco-friendly house of their own are outraged at the New Plymouth District Council's plans to help fund one in New Plymouth, and they are not alone.

New Plymouth couple Kathy Lovell and Grenville Simpson are building a house on a 0.3 hectare section on Mangorei Rd incorporating a number of eco-friendly principles and they say others in the district are too.

"It just galls me," Mrs Lovell told the Taranaki Daily News yesterday.

"We build this on our own and then we have to pay rates for another one.

"I know I'm not the only one incensed by what's happened.

"I just don't understand what the benefit to New Plymouth is going to be for them to use our money for it."

The eco-friendly show home has become the focal point for many people as they face the reality of a 10 per cent rates increase for the average residential ratepayer.

In letters to the editor and other forums the house has been frequently singled out by readers as an example of excessive council spending.

New Plymouth company Boon Goldsmith Bhaskar Team Architecture wants to design and build the house to showcase sustainable building principles.

The company proposes building the house at cost then using it as a "show home" for community groups and individuals for two years before selling the house, paying off debts and splitting any profit between partners.

Yesterday, architect Murali Bhaskar said the eco-house project was about behavioural change.

"Obviously everyone's feeling the pinch but that's not to say as a society we're not allowed to progress.

"It's a global issue and in some ways we're lagging behind some of the other regions."

Mrs Lovell and Mr Simpson's home is built entirely from untreated macrocarpa and includes natural insulation, solar water heating, a "black water" sewage system, radiator heating, eco paints and treatments, and is designed to catch the sun in winter and block it in summer.

They have built it mostly themselves and estimate it will come in for about $230,000 and said the cost estimate of the project would not encourage people to build sustainably and would in fact discourage them. Mr Bhaskar said the first estimate of $500,000 to $600,000 was speculation before designs had been made.

"We're only guessing at this stage until we get to the detail of what we put in it," he said.

"It's got to be quality though. This will be a little better than a spec home, but whether it costs four, five or $600,000 we just don't know yet."

He said he couldn't comment on Mrs Lovell's house because he hadn't seen it and had no idea what it consisted of.

The council voted to give $60,000 of seed funding for the project and to make a lot on the corner of Devon St West and Lorna St available for the home to be built on.

- © Fairfax NZ News