Massive backlog 'stifling district'

The Kaipara District Council - already under fire from the Ministry for the Environment for dragging its heels on resource consents - is now being slammed for its subdivision engineering standards.
A leading Northland firm of planners and surveyors, Reyburn and Bryant, alleges inconsistent and potentially "unlawful" applications of engineering standards with most subdivisions it handles involving the council.
In a letter sent to newly-elected councillor Bill Guest this week, Reyburn and Bryant directors Brett Hood, Bryce Woodward and Phil Lash said project delays of a year or more in some cases were placing huge financial pressure on their clients.
The Advocate knows of cases in which landowners, faced with delays stretching into years, have given up trying to subdivide their properties - instead selling up and leaving the district.
"Many of our clients and their lenders have begun to steer clear of the Kaipara district because of the delays and difficulties experienced in dealing with the council's consultants," the Reyburn and Bryant directors said.
"The council's officers seem either oblivious to how this is holding back development in their district, or simply don't care," they said.
The Reyburn and Bryant directors told Mr Guest they were writing to him because they were at their "wits' end" as their attempts to rectify the situation directly with the consultants and the council had fallen on deaf ears.
Mr Guest circulated the letter to councillors. After the local government elections in October, new mayor Neil Tiller - who has recommended Mr Guest hold the council's regulatory portfolio - asked him to look into the council's poor performance on resource consent processing. A Ministry for the Environment survey in 2005/06 rated Kaipara the worst in the country in meeting statutory timeframes for processing resource consents.
A further Ministry review earlier this year found the main reasons for Kaipara's poor performance were:
• Lack of clarity and agreement in contracting arrangements between the council and the consultants.
• Time lost when transferring applications between the council and the consultants.
• Inconsistent resource consent management and reporting systems.
• Time lost in engineering.
But the ministry review team also recorded there had been a noticeable improvement since the 2005/06 survey.
Mr Tiller said he was disappointed and annoyed with what he saw as a lack of professionalism on the part of Reyburn and Bryant in contacting Cr Guest.
"What a back-door way of approaching council. We regard these people as professionals, yet they made no attempt to contact council's chief executive, Jack McKerchar, or me over these matters," he said.
Mr McKerchar said the Reyburn and Bryant directors had made no effort to contact him over their concerns, despite him having regular meetings with one of them.
While acknowledging problems with engineering standards, Mr McKerchar said the standards applied were "totally reasonable and sound local government practice".
* THE NUMBERS
CONSENT APPLICATIONS PROCESSED ON TIME:
Kaipara District Council 23%
Far North District Council 51%
Whangarei District Council 56%
Northland Regional Council 98%