Alistair Forde, who has applied for consent for a carport and retrospective consent for a retaining wall on his Sunshine Bay property, said he or his consultant have been dealing with council for over four months — "they’ve had all that information since the start of May".
So far he has been billed just over $9000, "and I have got bugger all out of it, basically".
Mr Forde said he had no problem paying a set charge to apply for a consent, as outlined on the council website.
"But I didn’t realise they were running up thousands of dollars of bills behind the scenes. I had no idea about."
Every time he or his consultant dealt with a query, it seemed to cost $200 or more, he said.
Mr Forde felt it was like double-dipping, in that he was paying council employees’ wages through his rates, but was getting tapped for more and more beyond his initial upfront payment.
In an email to Mayor Glyn Lewers this month he stated: "I have paid Queenstown Lakes District Council invoices totalling $5074 to date and have another just received for $4009 for ongoing council queries, internal reviews and reports written up".
"This does not include $11,921 for private consultants which continues to grow due to the continued email queries from council."
The council should be about looking after its community, not fleecing it when people who own homes want to improve their properties and live here, he said.
"The Resource Management Act in its current state fails to justify the council’s excessive billing, which appears to be driven by policies focused on generating revenue at the community’s expense.
"Furthermore, there seems to be a lack of oversight, transparency and accountability in the council’s practices."
Mr Forde also told Mr Lewers he paid $433 to have a 20-minute meeting with a council planner about putting a doggy daycare centre into Frankton’s Glenda Dr, only to be told it was a prohibited activity.
By contrast, he said he spoke with someone at Central Otago District Council who stated that would not be a problem.
"That took 20 minutes and I did not have to pay anything."
Mr Lewers, speaking to Mountain Scene last week, said his office was following up Mr Forde’s concerns he was being overcharged for resource consents.
"My office is on to it now, but it sounds quite complex, so it might just take a little bit of time.
"We’ll make sure the process and the fairness is correct, but the actual decision making and all that, that is a technical matter for the regulations side of [council].
"When it comes to resource consenting and that regulatory stuff, I’ve made sure politicians stay well out of it."
However, speaking generally, Mr Lewers said, "consenting, especially building consents and resource consents, are fully user-pays — rates don’t cover that".
But when it came to looking into Mr Forde’s concerns, he said, "put it this way, he won’t be paying for me looking at it".
