People who lodged building consent applications with the Dunedin City Council last month have been warned to expect processing delays after a rush of last-minute applications to beat new building regulations which came into effect on March 1.
During February, 240 applications were submitted, including about 150 in the final week of the month, council chief building control officer Neil McLeod said this week. The total was 83 more than the corresponding month last year.
Applicants were trying to beat Building Act changes which now require design and critical structural and weatherproofing construction on houses and small and medium-sized apartment buildings to be carried out or supervised bylicensed building practitioners.
Local authorities aim to process all building consent applications within 20 working days, but Mr McLeod said the council would not meet that target for February.
"We got about a month's worth of work in one week.
"We've stopped granting staff annual leave and it's all hands to the pump, but unfortunately we are just not resourced for such a workload."
Applications were processed in the order submitted and it was possible consents lodged at the end of last month would not be processed for 40 working days.
While processing delays of three to four weeks were "longer than we would like", Mr McLeod said there was nothing he could do.
"Unfortunately, it is just one of those things ... We have adequate staff to process most applications within the 20 working day statutory period but we cannot control our incoming workload."
Local authorities from throughout the country were facing the same situation, he said.
He had received calls from other councils asking if Dunedin had spare processing capacity but could not help.
Mr McLeod said it appeared many of the consents submitted last month did not have to be submitted before March 1.
"There seems to be a fairly low level of understanding about the [March 1] changes. The changes do not affect industrial or commercial buildings, or work on domestic and small or medium-sized apartment buildings not related to structural integrity and weatherproofing."
