The Otago Regional Council should waive fees for water users caught out as they convert expired historic water privileges into valid consents, a councillor says.
Cr Hilary Calvert said the issue was a matter of fairness after an Environment Court decision changed the path for those involved in a process while it was under way.
Cr Calvert said she was a firm believer in "user pays", but decisions made by the council had affected the amount people needed to pay.
In this case, the user was paying to start a process that was paused and then altered as it ran its course through the court system, she said.
"I just think that what we have done to these people is not a fair ‘user pays’ sort of response," she said.
"It’s cost a whole lot of money and it would be useful to have a mechanism that would allow us to at least say, ‘we’ll process the balance of your application for $500, or whatever it is’, knowing that the rest of that will be paid by ratepayers.
"It was us [the council] on behalf of ratepayers who got us to the position we are in.
"I feel deeply uncomfortable that we put them into that position, and I don’t think it’s fair."
The council’s plan change 7 was substantially rewritten due to submissions after it went through a fast-tracked process through the Environment Court.
Cr Calvert characterised the resulting interim, short-term consents a "rollover" from the permits they replaced.
At a regulatory committee meeting last week, she said she knew the council’s regulatory team had done everything it could to reduce the costs to applicants.
But she asked whether staff were able to estimate costs it would take for converting applications in progress to ones that fit with the new plan change provisions.
Regulatory and communications general manager Richard Saunders said the council had processed 15 consents since the court’s decision shortly after the permits expired, and the average fees for those lodged in 2021, before the decision came out, had been just over $5000.
The range of processing fees had been between $1500 and $12,500, which showed the variety of applications and work required to get the applications over the line, Mr Saunders said.
The council’s costs only included its fees for processing consents and not the costs that might be incurred if the applicant had paid for legal assistance, he said.
The council’s "plan change 7" was made operative at the start of the month, a milestone as the council works towards a fit-for-purpose land and water plan by the end of next year.
It meets recommendations of Environment Minister David Parker after 2019’s critical Skelton report.
Plan change 7 created interim consents as goldmining permits allowing water takes expired and before the new land and water plan takes effect.
Chairman Andrew Noone said the issue of waiving fees was better suited for councillors to consider when they discussed the annual plan.
