Kaipara Bucks National Trend in Resource Consent Processing

Kaipara District Council has upped its game in the last two years processing more Resource Consents on time than the New Zealand average, according to a recent government survey.

The Ministry for the Environment's bi-yearly Resource Management Act (RMA) survey tracks the efficiency of Local Authorities as they process resource consents for subdivision, land use, coastal, water and discharge activities in each district. The survey helps promote good practice and monitors how the Resource Management Act, which underpins the environmental management of New Zealand, is being implemented.

"A disappointing result in the 2005/06 survey showed us that we needed to make some changes " says Kaipara District Council Development Manager Mark Vincent.

"A combination of hard work, reassessing procedures and a determination to improve has seen the number of resource consents processed by the Kaipara District Council within statutory timeframes rise to 79% - nicely above the national average of 69%. We are pleased to have made such a dramatic improvement and we are working hard to improve further." says Mr Vincent.

In-house figures show that Council is on track to improve these figures even more this year, while some other organisations seem to be struggling.

Kaipara bucked another national trend in 2007/08, by publicly notifying 5.54% of resource consents for subdivision and land use applications, above the national average of 4% for territorial authorities. This gave people the chance to submit their opinion on projects.

The majority of the 274 resource consents processed in the last year did not warrant public notification, as they were not considered likely to have negative effects on individuals or the environment.

"Council wants to encourage growth in our District, and one way to do this is to make sure processes like resource consents are as smooth as possible for people," says Mr Vincent.

The next RMA survey will be carried out in 2011. It should be able to gauge the effect of the new Resource Management Act (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill due to come in to effect later this year. The Kaipara District Council is looking forward to putting it into action.

“There are some good changes in the new Act which will enable us to make further improvements to the service we provide, without compromising the environment for future generations,” says Mr Vincent.