Kura breach ‘low risk’: Emails show Gisborne school seen to be breaching consent

There is disagreement over whether a Gisborne school has been operating in breach of its resource consent for more than five years. 

Documents indicate that despite being notified by the council multiple times, the school knowingly violated these conditions, and council staff were reluctant to give an abatement notice. 

The school,  Te Kura Kaupapa Māori O Hawaiki Hou, is allowed to operate from the first floor of the building, but since 2019 it has also been providing education from the ground floor. 

Educational activities are not allowed on the ground floor of city-centre buildings under the Tairāwhiti Resource Management Plan (TRMP). 

This is because it could discourage retail and other community functions such as entertainment and social services.  The vibrancy of the city centre has been steadily declining in Gisborne for the past decade, with an increase in vacant shops. 

The kura, sited in an old bank building in central Gisborne, has since submitted a discretionary resource consent application which is currently on hold. 

Te Kura Kaupapa Māori O Hawaiki Hou principal Russel Wilson denied breaching the resource consent, saying this is backed by the Gisborne District Council and the Ministry of Education. 

“There is no evident, clear indication to a breach in resource consent,” he said. 

The kura,  a Māori kaupapa school of about 60 students aged 5 to 18, moved into the central Gisborne building in February 2019, and is registered as an off-site learning facility of TKKM o Kawakawa mai Tawhiti (of Hicks Bay). 

In an email thread from 2019, a compliance manager told a council staff member of the breach and said the normal process would be to issue an abatement notice instructing the school to stop breaking the rules. 

“The school in question is a Māori school, and before we escalate this to the enforcement level, I just wanted to get your opinion,” he said. 

Three years later, the school received an email from a compliance officer asking for the school to apply for resource consent within one month from February 3, 2023, “otherwise further enforcement actions will be taken”. 

On May 30, 2023, the kura paid for its resource consent application to operate from both floors and for overnight wānanga, which the school had been facilitating. 

Email threads show it was only after this point that the council became aware of the overnight stays. 

The council told LDR resource consent was not required for overnight sleepovers in an educational institute on the first floor of a building in the inner commercial zone. 

However, in an email to the kura on July 25, 2024, the council said until the resource consent application had been accepted, the school could not have any more wānanga. 

“This measure is in place to ensure compliance with the rules and, more importantly, to prioritise the safety of all individuals,” it said. 

A council spokeswoman said they had known about the school breaching resource consent by operating from the ground floor. 

They said the council looked at what was fair, reasonable and proportional, and applied this principle across all activities. “From a resource management perspective, the school is low risk." 

The school had recently been in the media for its appeal against a nearby liquor licence application. 

The kura’s resource consent application is on hold while the council waits for the kura to provide information on how it intends to legally formalise the existing rear fire escape. The site and adjoining rear site are both owned by Richard Foon (the previous mayor’s brother) and the school needs the rear fire escape legalised, in case Foon sells the rear property, according to an email addressed to the council’s sustainable futures director, Joanna Noble. 

“The fire safety issues are also connected to the overnight sleeping situation,” said the email. 

Noble told LDR the school’s fire design had been subject to a report from a registered fire engineer and then sent to Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz)  for review as part of the resource consent process. Both reports concluded specified systems and escape paths were compliant for the current use, she said. 

The Ministry of Education has authorised the kura to have up to 100 students, but only if it is able to utilise the ground floor as well as the first floor. 

However, if the school were to increase its roll to 100 students, it would need  Fenz approval of a fire evacuation scheme. 

Such a  scheme is needed when six or more people are staying overnight on a site. 

The kura’s principal, Russel Wilson, said it had always had an emergency evacuation plan that aligned with school policies and procedures in case any disaster was to occur. 

In case the kura needed to expand its number of enrolments, it had also submitted a fire evacuation scheme to Fenz for approval, he said. 

“The kura takes child welfare very seriously,” he said. 

Fenz  said the escape path was not compliant and it was the owner of the building that legally was required to provide and maintain it.  

The Fenz fire report also said the school needed to provide more details on its overnight stays, as it might need to invest in a sprinkler system. 

“We have contacted the building owner to advise them of their responsibility under our legislation and we are currently engaged in a process with the owner to become compliant,” it said. 

Foon told LDR the building complied with the code of compliance and building warrant of fitness. 

- This article was updated on September 5 to attribute comment about the school breaching resource consent, and this being assessed as low risk, to a council spokesperson. It had been incorrectly attributed to the council chief executive.