The Dunedin City Council has hired two new processors to help alleviate the workload facing its delay-plagued building department.
Building consents from the council have been marred by extended delays following a shortage of staff and influx of applications.
Consents are meant to be processed within 20 working days of acceptance. Council building services manager Neil McLeod confirmed yesterday about one-third of consents were past the statutory limit at present and the most overdue was double that time.
The Otago Daily Times reported last month delays have caused issues for both large and small building firms, as companies juggle planning around blown-out deadlines.
The council had taken steps to address the issue and in addition to hiring the two staff, it was sending applications outside the city and working overtime.
Mr McLeod said the new staff members had to be trained, as securing experienced processors was not an option at present, and it would take some time for the department to tackle the abundance of applications.
The council received 256 building consent applications last month, about a 30% increase on the 196 received in April last year.
‘‘That's the issue we are facing,'' he said.
‘‘It's our incoming workload that's causing grief.''
At its worst about half of all applications were past the statutory timeframe earlier this year. The situation was improving, he said.
Registered Master Builders Otago president Steve Jory said he had an hour-long meeting with council managers, including Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull and council chief executive Dr Sue Bidrose, on Monday and had been reassured the problem would be resolved.
‘‘It's positive that they are taking on more staff,'' he said.
‘‘It's obviously positive that people higher up than Neil realise the department is not functioning as it should be and they do want to make it better.''
Builders wanted to work with the council to improve the situation and meetings with inspectors to address each sides' expectations were planned, he said.
It is understood the issue had become so bad last month that companies were juggling planning around blown-out deadlines and some small companies had to down tools and take leave to cope.
Some consents had blown out to almost 60 working days to be processed.
