The Waitaki District Council is being "proactive'' investing in its building team, council regulatory services manager Lichelle Guyan says.
The $222,000 the council would spend on "regulatory services improvements'' was the largest item on the document the council produced in its public consultation for its 2016-17 annual plan scheduled for adoption on June 22, she said.
The budget item, approved at the June 8 extraordinary council meeting in Oamaru, was prompted by both an internal review and an International Accreditation New Zealand review done last year.
The money would be used to pay staff who would start in July, Mrs Guyan said.
"We weren't meeting our statutory timeframes for processing work, but obviously we are not at the level of some other TAs [territorial authorities] across the country that are under formal review.''
Mrs Guyan said 95% of consents should be processed within 20 working days, but at the council that was "not always'' happening.
Further, she said, the internal review showed the council required staff "at the higher end, rather than the developing end''.
"We have a very enthusiastic team here, and we lost a lot of expertise. We lost a senior building control officer and [had] the retirement of our two longest-serving staff members at the same time. We needed to bring in a level of experience to the team so that we could process the more complex work.''
The council would enlarge its building team by hiring two full-time staff, Mrs Guyan said.
Other roles would be fixed and part-time to "manage certain projects'' and to ensure the timeframes were met.
International Accreditation New Zealand stripped the Christchurch City Council of its building consent powers in 2013 after noting lengthy delays and poor-quality work and last month the Queenstown Lakes District Council had to adopt a corrective action plan over delays in issuing building consents.
