The Dunedin City Council has given no promises it will be able to process building consents more quickly.
Under the Building Act, building consent authorities are expected to process consents within 20 working days. The city council was achieving, or almost achieving this timeframe earlier in the year, but since June has been a long way off the target.
Chief building control officer Neil McLeod said while his staff did their best, sometimes workloads did not match resources.
"If a whole lot of consents come in at once, then I'm sorry, but we can't hire more staff to deal with them."
Councils were not reprimanded or penalised if they did not meet the statutory deadline, he said yesterday.
However, councils needed to remain accredited as a building consent authority and the number of consents processed within the statutory time limit was considered as part of the accreditation process, he said.
Builder Ken Cathro said yesterday slow processing held up builders and subcontractors, reduced productivity in the industry and frustrated homeowners.
The main concern for many builders was not finding out soon enough if there were problems with consent paperwork, he said.
"It seems consents are not even looked at until day 21."
Supplying additional information meant it could be another five or six working days before a consent was approved, he said.
"It gives you the screamers ... mucking about and waiting all the time."
Builder Dave Wootton said it took the Clutha District Council an average of about a week and a-half to issue a consent for a new house and he could not see why it took the city council much longer.
The city council wrote letters to applicants if more information was required to process consents and Mr Wootton wondered why staff did not telephone for the information instead. That way the council could get the information immediately, he said.
Mr McLeod said building consents were handled in two systems which operated in tandem. One system dealt with small consents, such as wood burners, sheds and garages, and another for larger consents.
Staff who accepted larger consents ticked off a checklist to ensure the consent paperwork was complete. But there was not necessarily a detailed assessment of the consent for some time, he said.
Larger consents were processed on a "first come, first served conveyor belt system" and looked at when they were next in the queue. Some required input from other council departments such as planning, roading, waste and water. Some were also sent to the council's geotechnical consultants for comment.
It was inevitable problems with some consents would not be found until near the end of the 20-day period, Mr McLeod said.
"Regrettably that is so ... Sometimes there are blowouts. It happens regularly to us, and I am sure to all consenting authorities."
Otago Master Builders Federation president Mark Ward said yesterday the council was "doing quite well" with processing times, "but was going to have to do better".
Industry pressure had already resulted in the council agreeing to reduce consent charges from September 19, he said. The industry was also working with Mr McLeod and his staff and giving them ideas about how to speed up consent processing.
One of the ideas was for consents to be held in a central electronic file so they could be worked on by staff from various departments at the same time.
