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Consents not being sought
26 October 2005
By BETH CATLEY
Reports of people building without a council consent in Nelson are on the rise, with suggestions processing delays are to blame.
Nelson City Council contractor Environmental Inspections on Tuesday presented its annual report to the council's environment committee.
The report showed Environmental Inspections received 94 complaints about people building without consent in the 2004-2005 year, compared with 53 the previous year.
Cr Gail Collingwood said the high number could be the reflection of a public perception that consents took a long time to be processed.
Builders have reported delays of up to 12 weeks in gaining building consents as the council struggles with staff vacancies and increased paperwork requirements imposed by the Building Act.
The figures showed the council received 147 building consent applications in September. During that month 120 consents were processed, and 55 were completed within the statutory 20 day timeframe.
But speaking outside the meeting environment and planning divisional manager Richard Johnson said a straight comparison of those figures was not useful, as the applications received later in the month would not need to be completed until the following month, some of those processed in September would have been received in August, and "the clock stopped" on an application if the council had to ask for more plans or information.
Mr Johnson said although there would always be "the odd person" who decided to "try it on", in many cases people had begun building genuinely not realising they needed a consent.
A team leader position in the consents department was likely to be filled by Friday, Mr Johnson said, but that still left two planning vacancies and two vacancies in the building consents area.
"The thing that could help us most is a fall-off in the volume of consents coming through."
The increase in consent applications was likely to be driven by population growth, and the growth of hillside and multi-unit developments, Mr Johnson said.
Environmental officer Brent Higgins told the Nelson Mail people had been prosecuted by the council for building without consent, with a $4000 fine handed down in one instance, although no one had been prosecuted in the past year.
Infringement notices were also issued in some cases, he said.
Mr Higgins said the problems ranged from people building alterations or decks, to major building projects such as new houses without consents.
Master Builders Nelson president Andrew Eggers said he had not heard of builders bending the rules to avoid lengthy processing delays and imagined minor alterations were probably the most common work undertaken without consent.
"The bigger problem is for the home owner because when they come to sell the property and the prospective buyer realises that there's some unpermitted work in there they're either going to walk away from the deal at that point or the owner is going to have to get it put right before they sell it, and that just becomes a headache."
Tasman District Council environment and planning manager Dennis Bush-King said that while unauthorised work was sometimes picked up during land information requests or when properties were being sold, the council did not have a lot of current cases where people had been caught building without a consent.
He said he knew of two current cases where construction without proper authorisation was an issue in Tasman, and enforcement action was being taken in one of those cases.
News source
26 October 2005
By BETH CATLEY
Reports of people building without a council consent in Nelson are on the rise, with suggestions processing delays are to blame.
Nelson City Council contractor Environmental Inspections on Tuesday presented its annual report to the council's environment committee.
The report showed Environmental Inspections received 94 complaints about people building without consent in the 2004-2005 year, compared with 53 the previous year.
Cr Gail Collingwood said the high number could be the reflection of a public perception that consents took a long time to be processed.
Builders have reported delays of up to 12 weeks in gaining building consents as the council struggles with staff vacancies and increased paperwork requirements imposed by the Building Act.
The figures showed the council received 147 building consent applications in September. During that month 120 consents were processed, and 55 were completed within the statutory 20 day timeframe.
But speaking outside the meeting environment and planning divisional manager Richard Johnson said a straight comparison of those figures was not useful, as the applications received later in the month would not need to be completed until the following month, some of those processed in September would have been received in August, and "the clock stopped" on an application if the council had to ask for more plans or information.
Mr Johnson said although there would always be "the odd person" who decided to "try it on", in many cases people had begun building genuinely not realising they needed a consent.
A team leader position in the consents department was likely to be filled by Friday, Mr Johnson said, but that still left two planning vacancies and two vacancies in the building consents area.
"The thing that could help us most is a fall-off in the volume of consents coming through."
The increase in consent applications was likely to be driven by population growth, and the growth of hillside and multi-unit developments, Mr Johnson said.
Environmental officer Brent Higgins told the Nelson Mail people had been prosecuted by the council for building without consent, with a $4000 fine handed down in one instance, although no one had been prosecuted in the past year.
Infringement notices were also issued in some cases, he said.
Mr Higgins said the problems ranged from people building alterations or decks, to major building projects such as new houses without consents.
Master Builders Nelson president Andrew Eggers said he had not heard of builders bending the rules to avoid lengthy processing delays and imagined minor alterations were probably the most common work undertaken without consent.
"The bigger problem is for the home owner because when they come to sell the property and the prospective buyer realises that there's some unpermitted work in there they're either going to walk away from the deal at that point or the owner is going to have to get it put right before they sell it, and that just becomes a headache."
Tasman District Council environment and planning manager Dennis Bush-King said that while unauthorised work was sometimes picked up during land information requests or when properties were being sold, the council did not have a lot of current cases where people had been caught building without a consent.
He said he knew of two current cases where construction without proper authorisation was an issue in Tasman, and enforcement action was being taken in one of those cases.
News source