At tomorrow's full meeting, councillors will be asked to approve an increase in various planning and development fees and rates, including hourly rates for planners, monitoring fees and administrative charges.
Staff are worried the council would not recover the "true cost'' of services, amid the building boom. It will be the council's first fees increase since 2009 and many charges are set to rise 25% or more.
However a submission by Wanaka developer Willowridge Developments raised concerns about value for money.
The company's general manager of property and planning, Alison Devlin, said Willowridge and related companies Orchard Road Holdings Ltd and Central Machine Hire Ltd were spending tens of thousands of dollars annually on consent fees.
On many occasions the companies had expressed concerns at "excessive QLDC charges and inefficient practices''.
In a June 9 email, Ms Devlin pointed to processing costs of almost $25,000 over six months for the first stage of the Alpha Ridge subdivision. She said the company's engineers came up with a solution while a council consultant came up with another, racking up "huge fees trying to re-invent the wheel''.
Central Machine Hire was charged more than $45,000 in planning fees for a "reasonably straightforward'' gravel quarry application.
Willowridge called on the council to use fewer external consultants, to set a fixed fee for consultants' work, to have more efficiency and transparency over council charges and for any council overlap with external consultants to be absorbed by the council.
A hearings panel into the proposed increases, headed by Mayor Vanessa van Uden, concluded the hourly rates proposed were on a par with comparable councils and reflected the cost of services.
Minutes from the panel's deliberations said Alpha Ridge "was a large development that had complicating factors''.
A suggested fixed fee was rejected by the panel because it would not increase efficiency and there would be no incentive for companies to improve the standard of their applications.
Ms van Uden, who voted against the fees hike in April, noted her "discomfort'' with the hours being charged to a consent. According to the minutes, she suggested regular reports be sent to councillors "so that they could monitor changes and be comfortable that charges were being based on fair and reasonable times''.
The council's general manager of planning and development, Tony Avery, said his department was focused on operational efficiency.
After a review, Auckland consultancy Tattico said the council's approach and hourly rates were reasonable and it was providing credible service. However, there were several areas where overall timeliness could be improved, the report said.
The council has struggled to issue building consents within statutory timeframes and was in danger of losing its powers to issue building consents. However, last month it announced it would continue to be accredited to IANZ, which had accepted its "corrective plan''.
