While the Otago Regional Council has yet to give a discount for late resource consent processing, the issue still has applicants dissatisfied.
The annual consent customer satisfaction questionnaire showed applicants continued to have concerns about high processing costs and lengthy processing times.
Council resource planning director Selva Selvarajah said at a recent committee meeting the survey reflected past surveys and similar concerns about time frames.
The council was working on improving time frames and it had not yet had to grant a discount for exceeding the time frames set out in the new Resource Management Act "streamlining" regulations, which require councils to process consents within set time frames or give applicants a discount of 1% per day delayed, up to 50%.
"We'd like to keep it that way."
About 75% of those who returned the survey said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the time taken to process the consent.
Only 60% of applicants found the application forms for consents very easy or somewhat easy to understand or complete.
Cr Michael Deaker said the application forms were a critical first step in the process and should be much easier to answer than they were, as it might make the results for other parts of the process even better.
Council associate director of strategic communications Peter Taylor said the council had employed a graphic designer specialising in forms to work with staff to make things easier to follow.
The aim was to completely renew all the consent forms, he said.
Other results showed 79% found the quality of service to be excellent or very good and 91% found staff assistance before applying excellent or good.
The survey return rate was 23%.
