Tauranga City Council has brought in experts to investigate problems with its building consents.
The move comes amid public complaints about the way the council is handling consents.
Details about the nature of the complaints were not available today, but the council has been under pressure since a citywide building boom sparked record numbers of applications to build new homes and alter existing ones.
A council spokesman said an independent review would be conducted by auditing and advisory firm BDO.
The council's chief executive, Garry Poole, said he expected the review to be finished by early next month.
The review had "a broad scope" and would examine all aspects of the consent process.
"Tauranga City Council has a responsibility to our community to consider the complaints and we are confident we are following a fair and reasonable process.
"Given the review is now underway, we will not be making any further comment. It is important to allow the review to run its course."
In December, the Bay of Plenty Times revealed that the council had started out-sourcing the processing of building consents as the number of applications continued to break records.
At the time, the council said that while most building consents were still processed in-house, some were outsourced to Porirua City Council and to private firms Holmes Farsight and Holmes Solutions, both subsidiaries of Holmes Group.
Of the 40 to 80 consent applications the council received each week, it sent away between 15 and 25.