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The last resident of Oriental Bay is protesting against anything and everything, with no plans to move.
David Parker’s house has it all: sun from morning to night, the sea lapping at your doorstep, and Wellington’s wealthiest neighbors.
But there is a problem: Parker has set up camp under a tarp, supported by a box, right in the middle of Oriental Bay beach.
Parker moved in on a full moon, eight days ago. On Friday he told Stuff that it was a protest, but that he couldn’t pin down exactly what he was protesting.
He had no plans to move even if the council arrived with bulldozers, as scheduled for the next few weeks.
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It has created a difficult situation for the Wellington City Council, which confirmed that it was seeking legal advice to determine if it could transfer him.
Council spokesman Richard MacLean said the council learned of Parker’s presence shortly after his arrival. He understood that the police and the Center’s Community Ministry had been notified.
TOM HUNT / Things
David Richard Parker, who settled in Oriental Bay in protest at everything from Covid-19 numbers to freedom.
There has been a “fairly steady stream of comments and complaints,” MacLean said.
The beach was due to its annual sand change over the next several weeks, where the council redistributes the sand across the beach as the tides and wind have moved it from one extreme to the other, so Parker would have to be relocated for security reasons.
Local Mary Coppins said she had some nice conversations with Parker, but that he had grown more aggressive as the days passed.
He had been yelling at people to keep their dogs under the shoreline and complaining that they were going to the bathroom on the beach, he said.
ROSA WOODS / Things
David Parker’s camp in Oriental Bay.
This was frustrating because residents had struggled to get their dogs onto the beach.
“He doesn’t remove the skin from my nose until he tells us what to do with our dogs.”
Parker was seen setting up sticks and digging a small trench, building what Coppins described as a “fortress.”
Coppins said that people should be tolerant and kind.
ROSA WOODS / Things
David Parker’s waterfront montage.
“He is living hard. They are people who have been through a lot. “
He had seen city hall employees on the beach asking Parker to move on.
Parker was previously in the headlines when he left his ship at Days Bay last February.
Police had been called in for belligerent behavior and his boat was pulled out of the bay after it was submerged, deeming it a “safety hazard”.
SUPPLIED
A yacht belonging to a man known locally as “Homeless Dave” was loaded onto a barge at Days Bay in Lower Hutt after boarding the water. The yacht had run aground and its owner was living on the beach in early 2020 (file photo).
Parker claimed his ship was “bitten by the harbor master,” but port administration spokesman Stephen Heath said the ship in question was disposed of in the landfill on August 27 because it was in very poor condition.
Heath said Parker had every opportunity to claim his boat but was unable to cover the costs involved in its recovery, something that taxpayers should not cover.
