Resource Consents update – 10 June 2021

Kia ora,

We're getting in touch to let you know about how things are tracking, and about some new measures we're putting in place to help create more consistency and certainty when we're processing resource consent applications. 

Multi-unit development

Recently, there's been an increase in new multi-unit residential developments in Christchurch, and as a result, there's been a lot of interest in their potential impact on local communities. In response, the Council has recently made a number of resolutions:

• An independent audit of resource consent decision-making (now completed).
• Council staff will investigate the outcomes of building multi-unit developments and report their findings back to the Council (ongoing).
• Staff will prepare a practice note intended to provide more consistency and certainty with respect to processing multi-unit applications (expected to be completed by August 2021).

Billboards

Applications for billboards are another area where there's uncertainty about how to interpret the various provisions. Similar to what we're doing for multi-unit applications, we've prepared a practice note to guide how these types of applications are processed. Read the practice note here.

Car parking lots

We're also currently working on a practice note for car parking lots, and we expect to release it prior to the end of June 2021.

Processing consistency

Another step we're putting in place to make things more consistent is to create subgroups in our team that handle different application types. At this stage, we've set up groups for the types mentioned above, made up of staff with expertise and experience in processing those types of applications.

Workloads

As you may know, we're very busy at the moment, with a lot of applications coming in, and unfortunately we're experiencing some delays to how quickly we can turn things around for you. The number of applications coming in hasn't just had an impact on our team, but also the various other Council departments and specialist services we work with. At the moment, we're currently handling a 40 per cent increase in application numbers from 2020, and a 23 per cent increase from 2019.

We're mostly keeping on top of workloads and processing applications within the timeframes, but unfortunately there may be delays at times. We'll get in touch to discuss if there's going to be any delay to processing your individual applications. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Concerns and enquiries

A significant portion of our work relates to enquiries and concerns. Along with the application numbers, we've also seen an increase here – about 95 per cent of the enquiries we receive are from the public and generally relate to new developments or the processing of applications. Addressing these can sometimes take time. 

On that note, if you have any concerns about the processing of an application, we encourage you to let us know – it will help us pinpoint what improvements we can make, and guide how we make them.

In the first instance, email John Higgins, our Head of Resource Consents, at
john.higgins@ccc.govt.nz

You can also contact our team leaders directly if you have their contact details. We also send out surveys with every decision, and we encourage you to complete those.

For more information on all things Resource Consents, please email dutyplanner@ccc.govt.nz or call 941 8999.