After concerns from the Queenstown Lakes District Council and the public, it is recommended the council not adopt a draft proposal on establishing guaranteed fees for resource consent activities.
Instead, it is recommended a proposal is developed which gives guaranteed prices for specific activities, rather than for activity types as put forward in the previous proposal.
At an extraordinary meeting on September 7, the council decided to adopt the fixed price proposal for the purpose of consultation and scheduled a hearing date for October 19.
Thirteen submissions were received and four people spoke in support of their written submissions.
While many submitters supported the fixed-fee idea, many thought it had pitfalls.
These included that the level of the fees proposed was too high, and the proposal was based on a guarantee for an activity type within a zone, and consequently it covered a broad range of actual activities.
The report to be discussed at the council's meeting tomorrow said "during [the] council's deliberation there was a concern that the proposal may be moving too far".
"The proposed methodology of charging for activity types rather than actual activities was considered to promote cross-subsidisation within activity types and to be potentially confusing for applicants," the report said.
"It was considered that a better approach would be to develop guaranteed fees for actual activities rather than activity types."
Council finance general manager Stewart Burns said based on the concerns raised through the consultation process, "the recommendation is to develop a new proposal that would take into account feedback received".
