Building consents shared
Waipā, Ōtorohanga and Waitomo district councils have agreed to share regulatory services staff in the latest hint Waikato local authorities are thinking “bigger picture”.
Alex Bell – Waitomo
The three councils signed an over-arching regulatory shared services agreement last month.
The details were shared with Ōtorohanga and Waitomo councillors this week.
Not covered in the agreement is animal control which has its own shared services deal.
Sharing building consents workload could soon follow.
An existing agreement between Ōtorohanga and Waipā for environmental health – water and food quality, waste disposal, housing and vermin control – has been replaced by the new deal.
Under the agreement, any one of the three councils can request additional regulatory support from any of the other councils, on a cost recovery basis.
Tony Quickfall – Otorohanga
A council can also offer spare capacity with building consent inspections and processing, compliance and enforcement investigations and response and resource consent processing.
The savings come by not engaging external consultants and the agreed hourly rate is about 60 per cent of what they would usually cost.
The agreement is non-binding and only on offer if councils have spare capacity.
Whether Waipā will take up the offer is unknown as staff no longer make “information only” reports available in council and/or council agendas.
Wayne Allan – Waipa
The District Growth Quarterly report, usually prepared by District Growth and Regulatory Services group manager Wayne Allan for the Strategic Planning and Policy committee was always the go to place for that sort of information.
The period from October 1 to December 31 would usually have been covered off in a report to the committee this month and include updates on growth cells, major resource consent applications, building consents, District Licensing Committee applications and quarterly statistics.
The deal with Waitomo and Ōtorohanga would potentially have been included in that report.
For a growth council like Waipā, the information was of value not only to media, but developers, businesses, retailers and chambers of commerce.
The News has asked Waipā District Council for the regular Transportation and Property reports which used to go to Service Delivery and Finance committees.
The request was forwarded to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings (LGOIMA) Act team.
Under the act the council has 20 working days to respond.
Good Local Media has also asked for Allan’s quarterly report.
Tony Quickfall, a former Waipā staffer now group manager Regulatory and Growth at Ōtorohanga council, reports this week his council issued 30 resource consents between July 1 and December 31.
The council approved 55 building consents in the six month period including 22 at Waikeria Prison.
Work at Waikeria Prison has kept his staff busy. More than 2000 inspections have been undertaken and 183 building consents issued over five years, he reported to his councillors.
Waitomo Strategy and Environment general manager Alex Bell told his councillors he hoped to see wider collaboration for building consents across a range of councils.
“This collaboration is looking at how we can share resources… for overflow processing of building consents,” the Te Awamutu born and raised Waikato University law graduate and environmental planner said in his five-page report.
