Media release

13 April, 2007

Waitakere among best in country at processing resource consents on time 

Waitakere City Council had the fourth best rate among the large councils in New Zealand for processing land-use resource consents and the best record in the Auckland region, during 2005/06.

According to a Ministry for the Environment survey just released, in the two years 2005/2006, Waitakere processed 83% of land-use consents within statutory deadlines. 

This is ahead of Manukau City (32%),  Auckland City (56%), Rodney (62%) and North Shore (66%).

The three councils ahead of Waitakere were Hamilton (100%), Dunedin (99%) and Christchurch (90%).

“That is a good result and we can be pleased with it, especially given some of the difficulties we faced, but we believe we can do better in the future,” says Councillor Vanessa Neeson, chair of Waitakere City Council’s Planning and Regulatory Committee.

“We do have some issues not faced by every council – such as the amount of marginal land in the city.  Consents for land of this nature are generally more complex and more difficult to carry out in time. So that is probably something we will always wrestle with,” she says.

“In addition, in the last two years we moved our headquarters and have been introducing a new computer system.  The biggest problem, however, was that we were understaffed for much of this time because of the shortage of people qualified for this sort of work.

“We now have more staff and so we expect to be able to post an even better result in the next survey,” Councillor Neeson says.

The report measures outcomes in a number of categories.

The key statistics showed that Waitakere City Council processed 1579 consents overall. 

It had an overall compliance of 80.3% compared with a national average of 73%.  

It processed 83% of land-use consents and 72% of non notified sub-division consents within the statutory timeframe.

Only 20% of notified consents met the deadline – but there were only five in total (out of 1579).

ends

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