{"id":455909,"date":"2026-06-01T20:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/455909\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T20:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T20:00:10","slug":"hastings-farmhouse-lodge-in-omahu-could-lose-its-tenants-in-council-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/455909\/","title":{"rendered":"Hastings: Farmhouse Lodge in Omahu could lose its tenants in council crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

That search related to suspected offences of the Resource Management Act.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe entrance into Farmhouse Lodge. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

Hastings District Council (HDC) has now made an application in the Environment Court for enforcement orders at Farmhouse Lodge.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the council is seeking a requirement that \u201call tenants on the subject site\u201d have their tenancies terminated, unless the buildings and activities comply with an approved Buildings and Activities Plan (BAP).<\/p>\n

A BAP is effectively a legal layout of the property, and includes which buildings are lawfully entitled to remain on site.<\/p>\n

Mediation will take place before that application can be heard in court.<\/p>\n

Mediation has been set down for around July, between the council and Bliss.<\/p>\n

Pending the outcome of mediation, further directions will be issued around whether or not the application will be heard in court.<\/p>\n

Hastings District Council has declined to comment on the matter while it is before the Environment Court, including exactly which buildings and activities need to comply.<\/p>\n

\"BuildingsBuildings and cabins are dotted around the property. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

Bliss claimed the dwellings were compliant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are all built to the building code … all the cottages have been built to code.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it was his understanding the issues stemmed from the location of the dwellings, and alleged encroachment on Hotel Rd.<\/p>\n

Bliss said he was hopeful the issues could be worked through during mediation.<\/p>\n

He said housing was \u201cthe worst it\u2019s been in the history of New Zealand\u201d and \u201cnow they are trying to evict 50 or 60 tenants\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bliss said he was disappointed that the council had not communicated better with tenants, many of whom had mental health needs and were now anxious about their living situation.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019d explained the situation to tenants and they did not wish to leave.<\/p>\n

Bliss has owned the property for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n

He said the council threatened to close Farmhouse Lodge down about a decade ago but was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

In December, Farmhouse Lodge avoided serious damage when a grass fire on a hill at its back<\/a> spread rapidly, destroying structures further up the hill.<\/p>\n

Investigations were continuing earlier this year into that fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That search related to suspected offences of the Resource Management Act. The entrance into Farmhouse Lodge. Photo \/…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[651,8994,124,5205,12639,231676,13915,5194,1976,3339,78,302,173,5268,231675,27612,111,43,139,69,166751,5202,384,104249,112804,17292,1361,102],"class_list":["post-455909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-close","tag-cottage","tag-could","tag-council","tag-crackdown","tag-evictions","tag-farmhouse","tag-hastings","tag-hawkes","tag-housing","tag-in","tag-its","tag-lodge","tag-lose","tag-lowrent","tag-mass","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-omahu","tag-part","tag-people","tag-provides","tag-setup","tag-tenants","tag-that","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}