Building applicants to cover extra costs

A proposed sharp rise in the council's building consent fees was blamed on the Government yesterday, but the cost of the increase passed on to consent applicants.

There was a long and sometimes fractious debate on the issue at the hearing, to decide how the increase could be funded.

Increases in building consent fees were proposed in a report to offset rising costs and a decline in the overall number of consent applications.

Council city environment general manager Tony Avery said the council had to hire five more officers to make up the 13 required to deal with a government-stipulated increase in the inspections required of building work.

That alone would cost the council $440,000 from July 1.

Development services manager Kevin Thompson said the extra consent processing and inspections had created what he called "a paper war".

Staff had proposed a 7% fee increase from February 1, and a further 23% increase from July 1.

Cr Dave Cull said the resultant fee increases would be "a shocking imposition on applicants", and accused the Government of "empire-building" while Cr Fliss Butcher raised concerns they would stifle those who were planning building projects.

Cr Cull suggested working with Local Government New Zealand to get the Government to change its policies, but that was labelled "naive" by Cr John Bezett.

Councillors debated at length how to split the costs between ratepayers and applicants, and eventually voted consent applicants would pay, with a 5% increase in fees from February 1, and a 23% increase from July 1.

Ratepayers will now fund an extra $112,000 of the council's environmental fees budget, following discussions yesterday.

Plans to raise the money from additional fees had been dropped, but the money would need to come from rates to maintain existing budgets, Mr Avery said.

 

 

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