Bye bye shack

There's another good reason – apart from its inherent ugliness – that the shack has to go. And this is it. High on a ridge, we look out across the Manukau Harbour to Glenbrook and Clarke's Beach. The shack blocked this view. So, this is how it's gone down so far: we applied for resource consent to axe the shack. Mainly because the building was butting up against a couple of kauris, this was granted. The conditions are that we employ an arborist to supervise the demolition of the building and to ensure we protect the kauris' roots at every stage. None of this is a problem. What does seem a little odd though is that because we are building almost up to our boundary, we are also required to plant a privacy hedge (in a  native specified by the council) to stop us overlooking our neighbours on one side. To do this we need to remove a row of perfectly healthy (and native) griselinia currently there. Go figure.