The effect so far of the Government's "simplifying and streamlining" changes to resource consent processes for the Otago Regional Council and consent applicants have been looked at in a report presented to the council's consent committee this week.
Under the streamlining Act, which came into effect last October, councils are required to process consents within set time-frames or give applicants a discount of 1% per day delayed, up to 50%.
Council resource management director Selva Selvarajah said in an interview the consequences of the changes meant those needing to renew resource consents needed to do it more than six months before they expired.
This was because to meet the time-frames, the council was required to send any application that did not have the information needed back to the applicant.
It could mean the approval process would extend past the expiry date of a consent and it would lapse.
In the case of a water right in a fully allocated area, it could leave a farmer without the ability to irrigate and no way to get a new consent.
"Given such stringent requirements, they need to apply much earlier."
In past years, the council had continued with the application, seeking the information as the process went on, he said.
Since October, the council had rejected 117 of 555 consent applications lodged as a result of the new legislation.
Another catch in the process was that if applicants failed to reply to the council's request for further information within 15 working days, then even minor applications were required to be notified, a costly process for the applicant, Dr Selvarajah said.
However, if the applicant contacted the council, but did not have the information, both parties could agree on a timeframe for that information to be provided, "stopping the clock".
Major consent holders such as local authorities also needed to be aware that consent applications lodged before 2005 could lapse if applicants did not contact the council by October or 12 months after a request for information had been made, he said.
This could affect about five local authorities' consents in Otago. If their ongoing consents to discharge into waterways lapsed and they continued to discharge, they could face enforcement action.
He urged all resource-consent applicants to make sure they understood the process, but, if in doubt, approach council staff for advice.
To ensure the council met the deadlines, many changes had been made to the way it processed consents, Dr Selvarajah said.
Coincidentally, new consent and compliance database would be ready in August, which would enable staff to more easily monitor consent time-frames.
"It's one ace up our sleeve. Combined with staff training in the new provisions, it will help ensure time-frames don't slip."
The council had yet to work out how it would fund the discounting provision, he said.
