Quick turnover for consents in the Hutt
Tuesday 11 October 2011, 1:32PM
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Hutt City Council is one of the fastest building consent processing authorities in New Zealand.
On average, a person waited nine working days to have their building consent processed – well under the 20 days allowed under the Building Act.
Processing 100 percent of consents within this statutory time limit has been an important factor in Council recently having its status as an accredited building consent authority reaffirmed.
This gives Council the ability to continue to approve building consent applications and issue code compliance certificates.
Environmental consents manager Helen Oram says accreditation will give the public confidence that Council is meeting the standards and criteria required by law.
“It’s also about giving great customer service which is something we’ve focused on during the past 12 months.”
Other recent initiatives to improve customer service include introducing electronic processing of consents, digitising property records which can now be viewed for free on computers located in Council’s building on Laings Road, and offering CDs of property information which can be ordered via email or over the phone.