"Significant" costs of holding resource consent hearings have led the Otago Regional Council to consider seeking 100% of the costs from the applicant.
A report prepared for the council's finance and corporate committee, which will meet tomorrow, recommends the council include the 100% recovery proposal in the draft 2009-19 Long Term Council Community Plan A review of the council's fees and charges had been undertaken to ensure individual funding policies were complied with.
The council charged applicants $250 for each four hours or part thereof for a hearing, but non-notified and notified consents, issuing certificates, permits and transfers, were funded 100% by fees and charges.
Resource consent appeals and administration were covered by general rates regional.
The report said the $250 charge was "considered to be inappropriate", given the actual costs that were incurred when holding hearings.
"The cost of commissioners' fees, legal and other costs are significant."
The proposal recognised the primary beneficiary was the applicant requesting the resource consent, the report said.
Other proposed charge changes included a recommendation to increase dairy-shed inspection costs from a fixed charge of $107.50 to $150 as, on average, the actual cost of the inspections was $300 and the policy was to recover half the costs from fees.
It was also proposed that the cost structure of low flow monitoring charges be changed to meet the revenue policy of recovering 100% in fees and charges.
They were being charged a fixed amount of $715, but under a new recommendation Kakanui consent holders would be charged about $320 each and Unnamed Stream consent holders would pay about $1400 each.
