Cuts to red tape could ease the pressure on Waitaki District Council building teams and speed up the building process for locals.
The council said changes made to the Resource Management Act 1991 earlier this year, which came into force this week, would give the council "the ability to waive consents for minor issues and [introduce] a new, fast-track 10-day resource consent process for some activities".
Council planning manager Hamish Barrell said building larger buildings than were otherwise permitted next to a neighbour’s boundary, for example, or a large barn next to a neighbour’s property in a rural setting — "one of the more common types of resource consents" — would require applicants to describe the activity, draw plans, and seek neighbours’ approvals.
"There’s another process, but it’s not a consent process," he said.
"There is a fee associated with it, but within 10 days, we will determine if it is a deemed permitted boundary activity ... and then we issue a written notice, so that skips through a whole chain of other processes that we would otherwise have to follow."
Changes had also been made to the process for considering when resource consent applications were to be publicly notified.
"In some instances we won’t be able to publicly notify resource consent applications for some residential activities, boundary activities and subdivision of land. This will change the way certain rules in the current Waitaki district plan are applied."
The council’s district plan was under review and the council was seeking feedback.
A Ministry for the Environment fact sheet introducing the resource consent exemptions for boundary activities and marginal or temporary rule breaches, and the fast track processes for "more straightforward applications" states the changes were made "to improve the proportionality of the consenting process".
