Kaipara Resource Consent Applications Will Be Processed Faster

A new process for dealing with Resource Consents was proposed at a meeting held last week on 6 December. Mayor Neil Tiller and Kaipara District Councillors along with staff met with developers and consultants at Mangawhai on 6 December to discuss the proposal and receive feedback. The proposal involves:

Making sure applicants understand what is required of them and their consultants.
Ensuring applications received are complete.
Removing doubt as to engineering standards that will be approved for construction of developments.
Resource consent applications being processed within statutory time frames.
To achieve these outcomes Council will be providing more information to potential applicants about what is involved in obtaining a resource consent, the requirements of the Resource Management Act and how they can help themselves to have the application processed quickly. In addition, Council will receive applications by appointment, with a planner available to review the application to ensure they are complete and to answer any questions from applicants. Council will also require engineering plans to be submitted with the application and these will be approved as part of the consent meaning there will be no doubt during the construction phase; post approval processes will be simpler and quicker. This will help to ensure all impacts of the development are understood and how they can be met. Mayor Tiller said “We may not get it right first time, but we want to do it better” and welcomed the feedback from those present. The feedback from the meeting was generally supportive of the changes and some suggested modifications are being assessed. The new system is in place, effective from Monday 10 December 2007