Brighton’s South Coast Neighbourhood Society, which is appealing last year’s approval of the resource consent, called the council’s spending on lawyers, consultants and consent fees for the landfill since 2018, "astronomical".
The council, meanwhile, maintained the associated costs were normal, considering the project’s size and complexity.
Official information obtained by the society and provided to the Otago Daily Times shows the Otago Regional Council spent $623,963 dealing with the city council application — costs the regional council subsequently recovered from the city council.
For its part,the city council spent $3,931,087 on consultants, $462,641 on lawyers and $702,759 on consent fees on the project over the past few years, the information shows.
The society said the information showed the council spent considerably more than it should have because of significant changes to the project mid-stream — necessary because the council’s application was rushed through ahead of new national standards for freshwater, released in early September 2020.
The council applied for consent on August 27, 2020, but it more than halved the size of its proposal in May the following year to avoid existing wetlands in the area.
South Coast Neighbourhood Society spokeswoman Sarah Ramsay, a Dunedin businesswoman, said the society had so far spent about $61,000 on experts and a lawyer, opposing the project, and was now entering an Environment Court process.
The amount of ratepayer money the city council had spent to date was "a hell of a lot more than we expected", Mrs Ramsay said.
But costs added up as the council amended its plans, she said.
"From a business perspective, it’s common knowledge that when you’re not well prepared, costs blow out like this," she said.
The city council had spent $2.4 million with a consultancy firm since January 2021 alone, she said.
Mrs Ramsay said more than half the costs had been incurred to revise the council’s plan.
"It just shows that they had a really poor plan.
"What can we expect with actual implementation?"
The society’s Viktoria Kahui, a senior lecturer of economics, said the society was entering mediation with the council this week.
Dr Kahui said the council would have incurred some costs anyway, but "a lack of consultation with the community and an incomplete application" had added to the council’s spending.
The society had raised money opposing the plan with fundraising, whereas the council had no such need.
"From our point of view, pushing through an incomplete application just a few days before the freshwater policy comes in, that adds to the cost.
"And remember the ORC asked them to go back and update many of the details in their application — that all costs money.
"It’s a bit like David and Goliath."
City council chief executive Sandy Graham said the costs were in line with what the council would anticipate for a project of this size and complexity.
"They reflect five years of work, including the preparation of a detailed business case, ground investigations, technical reports and consenting costs, as well as our legal fees.
"The application was not rushed; it was the result of years of detailed planning and preparation."
Ms Graham was not drawn on whether the process was a David and Goliath situation.
"We are working through the process required by law," she said.
