It
seemed like a simple enough job - building a block retaining nine metres long
and rising to about two metres high at its tallest point. The wall was to tidy
up a crumbling bank that had been excavated to give site access for house repairs
after the Christchurch earthquakes.
Well,
it seems that these days, nothing to do with building and local councils is
easy. Everything is complicated by
layers of rules and regulations that create obstacles and costs - even simple
jobs like retaining walls (and a kids
tree house for that matter).
An
article published by Stuff said the Banks Peninsula property owners gave up on
their retaining wall project once they discovered the costs of obtaining the
consent was going to be an astonishing $20,000 - and that's just to get
permission! The cost to actually build the wall was less than the consenting
costs! Here are some of the cost details as reported.
The
council required a deposit of $1,400 up-front for the building consent.
Included were various building levies and inspection costs, charged out at an
hourly rate of $200 which the council would no doubt justify by saying it needs
to pay staff salaries and all of the other cost that go with providing a
service and running a bureaucracy.
After
lodging their building consent application the homeowners were told they also needed
to obtain a resource consent, which the council said was required because the volume
of earthworks involved breached the rules in their District Plan. That required
the payment of a second deposit of $2,500 and there was no guarantee that the
council's cost would not increase if complications arose or an "affected
party" objected to the proposed retaining wall.
As
part of the resource consent application the Council required the homeowners to
supply a sediment management report from a suitably qualified sediment management expert. That cost was not yet known but it would be
fair to assume that such expertise would come at a cost of a few thousand dollars
rather than a few hundred.
And
they were asked to get a boundary survey; cost $4,025.
And
then there was iwi approval. That involved the payment of an $800 fee because
their property was within an iwi management plan area. That is an area that is
broadly defined and includes sites of significance to Maori. It's broadly
defined because the exact location of those sacred sites is kept secret lest
those with ill intent raid or desecrate them. So, basically the $800 fee is for
iwi to say whether they have an interest in the retaining wall or not. If not,
$800 would be the end of the matter. If the nine metre long retaining wall is on
a site that iwi consider culturally significant, then consultation with iwi
would be required. Iwi would have to prepare a cultural impact assessment
report, and charge the landowner accordingly, and maybe have a hui or two - at
the landowner’s expense - to discuss the matter and so on.
And
of course, given the complexity of the council’s requirements, our humble
homeowners would need to hire a planning expert to manage the process and
translate the esoteric terminology that is so important when assessing the
cultural and environmental effects of their proposed retaining wall. It
requires years of training to master this language and appreciate the nuances
of these esoteric concepts, which of course does not come cheap. The homeowners
were quoted $6,000 by a suitably qualified expert.
In
the end it was all too much for the homeowner. They did what most people would do.
They gave up. They decided to put up with an ugly and crumbling bank. The
down-trodden wife, said, "We feel a
bit sickened by it, and sorry for other people who have to go through
this."
Unfortunately
other people are going through
exactly this process, lots of people, everywhere, not only in Christchurch. When
challenged about it, Council planners will usually say they are simply putting
their District Plan into effect. The District Plan writers say they are simply
putting the Resource Management Act into effect (and conveniently overlook the
fact that it is they that set the threshold on things like the volume of
earthworks which trigger the need for a resource consent). There is in fact a
long line of rule makers all pointing a finger at someone else.
Last
in line is Parliament - the 120 people that we elect to run things properly.
The question is why they are not doing something about it?. Do they think it's
OK for a homeowner who wants to build a simple retaining wall to have to pay $20,000
to obtain consent? Surely they can't
possibly think it's OK, so why do they allow this madness to persist?
Frank
Newman, an investment analyst and former Councillor on the Whangarei
District Council, writes a weekly article for Property Plus.
8 comments:
Councils $200.00 per hour for inspections, my GP only just earns that each hour and I value his work way above any council employee. I baulk at paying iwi anything for work on my legally owned land. Blackmail pure and simple. A major revamp or scraping of the RMA is needed asap.
Resource management consent is a misnomer in my view, just building a shed and using very few "resources"
Councillors by and large are ordinary people uneducated in the nuances and complexity of our planning laws. They are therefore advised and led by an ever expanding bureaucracy headed by an overpaid CEO (town or district clerk). Councils should be striving to reduce their rules to the minimum required by Government with the only “extras” being those necessary for the good management and safety of their own territory. The bureaucracy would be slashed and much needed infrastructure would be affordable.
The charge rate is supposedly based on comparative commercial rates charged by Consultants who are required to pay tax on their incomes. So if a Council operates as a commercial unit but does not pay tax then the rate should be lower.
What a load of old rope. The MDC has the same philosophy, bureaucratic theft! And the Maori fellas talk about us stealing from them??, 15% of the population holding the rest of us to ransom.Cultural theft!
I understand that the need for the retaining wall was due to someone having to bulldoze a path through this area to access the property behind to complete remedial work. I would have thought that such work would have included a requirement for reinstatement of any disturbed land. So surely the costs of such a retaining wall or of such reinstatement would be borne by the original contractor who required access?
Your example is unsurprising. I put in a second kitchen. Cost of builder electrician and plumber $2200 Cost of Fridge Stove sink etc $2500 cost of paperwork and council $24000. Yes that6 is 3 zeros. And that is not all: Time to do the work 10 days, time for paperwork over 5 months.
After paying for a Resource Consent to have a sleep out converted to a Minor Dwelling I was required to make a "financial contribution" of $11000. Its likely the Christchurch couple would be faced with an additional bill if they obtained a resource consent..further increasing their paperwork budget
Simon Bridges spent a whole heap of money "introducing" himself to the electorate recently. He was part of a Govt that virtually walked around with their heads up their own backsides for nine years and did diddly squat about this progressive statist left wing crap called the RMA. A previous prime minister would rather spend time on a golf course with another idiot equally as left wing as himself rather than fixing the legislation that has been a choke hold on this country's advancement.
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