Tauranga City Council makes significant changes after Bella Vista failure

Bella Vista subdivision failure sparks significant changes by Tauranga City Council to its operations. Photo /file

Tauranga City Council says it has made "significant" changes to its operations since the failure of the Bella Vista subdivision.

A report presented to the council yesterday outlined several improvements to policies, procedures, training, enforcement and other aspects of its operations such as processes around consenting earthworks.

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The report also detailed a 9-month schedule for training and auditing to help ensure that improvements were ongoing, a Tauranga City Council press statement said.

The report was authored by Ray Day, the council's acting general manager for regulatory and compliance, as a detailed response to issues identified in a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment report into Bella Vista.

It said that "a clear vetting procedure supported by robust policies" had been developed to support staff with building consent applications.

Internal training workshops had been organised, supported by online training, and a full-day workshop delivered by an external agency to help improve one aspect of the council's operations.

Policies and procedures are being revised to ensure that external parties supplied certain documents to the council during construction, rather than at the end of a project.

A building consent document was also being reviewed," a council communications spokesperson said.

Regular audits were under way to ensure that certain building consent policies and procedures were being adhered to.

The council spokesman said external workshops and communications had been planned to make sure key stakeholders in the industry understood the way that the council handled aspects of the building consent process.

Multiple inspectors would be assigned to projects, rather than a "single point of contact".

The development of a clear process for dealing with enforcement under the Building Act 2004 has been added into the training calendar.

Many other improvements are outlined in the report, which will be published on the Bella Vista page on the council's website.