Fees increase pared back

Economic conditions and public submissions have encouraged the Far North District Council to pare back proposals to increase fees and charges applied to development applications.

A new schedule of fees and charges in the building and resource consent areas will be introduced from 01 December this year, but the average increases across the board have been considerably reduced on earlier predications.

The new regime of charges is expected to add less than one per cent to the cost of building an average residential home in the Far North.

The schedule effective from next month comprises a mixture of changes varying from a decrease of 6% to increases of around 35% in some categories. The overall impact is a projected increase of 30% in the total amount of fees collected. Originally the council had been looking at an average increase across the board of around 47%.

In general terms those to benefit from the new schedule will be smaller projects such as decks, free-standing fireplaces and projects with a value of less than $50,000. Larger scale projects will face fee increases of an average of 35%.

However a substantial lift has been introduced for projects seeking a change to the District Plan, to better reflect the actual costs the council has historically faced in making plan changes to accommodate major developments.

A plan to introduce an "up front" bond for certain categories of development has been dropped, as have proposals for increases in hourly staff charge-out rates.

The fees and charges review was designed to better reflect the costs of processing applications to meet government compliance levels and to reduce the level of rate subsidy required to meet operational costs. However the lesser increases imposed will mean around $1.6 million will still be required from rates this year.

Existing levels of service are expected to be maintained as a minimum outcome, in spite of the lower level of charges. The new scale of fees and charges means the Far North will remain within the median range in comparison with other local authorities.

Full details of the new schedule will be available on the council's website at www.fndc.govt.nz  within the next 10 days.