A licensed builder who destroyed part of a Heritage Listed house in Sydney's plush suburb of Wahroonga was ordered to pay fourteen thousand dollars by the NSW Land and Environment Court in Sydney. The builder Joe Vinci pleaded guilty to the destruction of the inside wall of the heritage listed house. Ironically it was Vinci's first job since starting his own building business and the prosecutor for Ku-ring-gai Council Mr Howard argued that Vinci should pay the maximum amount imposed for his breach of section 125 [76A] of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. Vinci's counsel Mr Clay argued that although his client had committed a grave error when destroying the wall no major "environmental harm" had occurred during the destruction. Clay also asked Justice Pain to take numerous other factors into consideration when deciding the fine to impose such as the fact that Vinci would restore the wall and also that this was his first offence.
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