A St Leonards resident is angry the Dunedin City Council is forcing him to change the address of a house he has lived in for more than 40 years.
The predicament Dr Ralph Allen finds himself in has its origins in his reluctant decision about 15 years ago to allow a developer to use his driveway to access a subdivision.
The access to the subdivision, which has yet to be developed, was named Kakapo St.
Since then Dr Allen and his wife had been able to keep his address on Harrier St, but a council staff member informed him this month he would need to change his address to Kakapo St.
''Nowhere, at any stage in the last 15 years were we told we would have to change our street address,'' Dr Allen said.
The letter from the council came after he suggested a sign be put up directing people looking for his address that it was up Kakapo St.
This would have been the ''simplest'' solution to the issue of people having trouble finding their address.
Changing the address involved the hassle of making everyone aware of the change and the potential for them to miss important mail.
It also meant changing the address which he had become ''rather fond of'' after owning the property for more than 40 years and raising a family there.
The level of response he got after raising the issue with councillors also frustrated him.
Acting information solutions manager Rob Garrett said changing the property's address was the only ''workable'' solution.
''He's got the current situation of having an address which doesn't refer to the road he accesses his property from and that, for a number of reasons, is not a good idea,'' Mr Garrett said.
The key issue was over people, including emergency services, not being able to find the property, he said.
In hindsight it was regrettable the address change had not been not considered when access was first granted for the subdivision.
