Cries for help to process building consents in the Queenstown Lakes District have gone unanswered, forcing the council to hire outside building contractors to stay on top of the workload.
Building services manager Stewart Geddes said the number of building consent applications in the district was already up by 30% this year. Between January 1 and April 19, 421 building consents were issued in the district.
Of those, 114 were issued in the statutory maximum 20 days or more. During the same period last year, the council issued 381 building consents, with just eight issued outside the statutory timeframe.
Mr Geddes said the average processing time was 19 days, but it was ‘‘inevitable'' the 20-day requirement would not be met in many cases due to increasing demand and a shortage of staff.
At present there were 17 building control staff at the council. They were helped by external contractors who worked an average of 200 hours a month. During peak periods, external contractors worked for up to 400 hours a month.
Appeals to other councils to help out drew only ‘‘minimal'' assistance.
‘‘We are hiring more external building contractors to process consents and actively trying to recruit more staff, but this is a sector-wide problem that is not easy to address.''
To minimise delays, the council would be beefing up its building processing and inspection regime to meet the ballooning demand from builders and developers.
The council would soon offer Saturday morning inspections in Queenstown and an extra inspector would be on the road to reduce the waiting time.
At present it took an average of five days for an inspector to be available for a routine inspection. The council was aiming to reduce that to one working day ‘‘as soon as possible''.
