The Otago Regional Council has decided, subject to public consultation, to discontinue its building consent authority accreditation for large dams past then.
Council consents manager Joanna Gilroy said there were several reasons behind the decision, including the small number of consent applications it dealt with and the cost of maintaining accreditation.
The number of applications had been decreasing over the past three years, and only one had been lodged in the past year, she said.
Retaining the accreditation was expensive, averaging about $95,000 a year since 2016.
Having Environment Canterbury process the applications cost the Otago Regional Council about $32,000 a year, which would still be a significant saving, Ms Gilroy said.
Maintaining accreditation involved an annual audit programme that required about 1800 staff hours between 2016 and this year, excluding the time spent processing consents.
A large dam is defined in the Building Act 2004 as a dam that has a height of four or more metres and holds 20,000 or more cubic metres volume of water.
Applications for consent would need to be sent to Environment Canterbury once the transfer was finalised, but any applications still sent to the Otago Regional Council would be sent on to Environment Canterbury.
Councillors approved a request from staff proposing the transfer during its council meeting on June 24. Dates for public consultation have not yet been approved.
Ms Gilroy said the council had also carried out Building Act functions for Environment Southland and the West Coast Regional Council since 2008. Both councils were also preparing to use Environment Canterbury in the future.
In a meeting yesterday, Environment Southland’s strategy and policy committee approved a request from council staff and would also consult the public on transferring consent management to Environment Canterbury.
A formal decision on the transfer by the Otago Regional Council was expected to be made in October.
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Whilst it beggers belief the ORC keep some peripheral functions, it farms out dams. Given how rediculously conservative the hazards/enguneering dept driven by gavin palmer, im sure consent applicants will rejoice at the transfer of function to ecan. Sad really, it would be better to have balanced staff at orc and retain the dam function.