Kate Hawkesby: Auckland Council's consent incompetence should mean compensation

Six projects where work has stopped are in Herne Bay, pictured, Grey Lynn and Ponsonby.

COMMENT: It's staggering that for a process constantly under fire for being hopelessly incompetent, we have yet more incompetence.

The process of applying for, getting and paying for resource consents is already a headache - but yesterday it became a full-blown migraine.

Auckland Council has asked 430 property owners to reapply for already-issued resource consents - because the council had misinterpreted some aspects of the Unitary Plan rules, when issuing the original consents.

Here's the rub: some of those who reapply may not even get a new resource consent after the council bungled the first one.

What sort of circus is this?
But wait, there's more. It gets worse.

Some of the property owners affected by this balls up will have to stop work on their properties.

Imagine that: Going through the time consuming and tedious process of leaping through hoops to get consent, you finally get it, you start the work, and then boom, you have to stop. Why? Because the council didn't read its own Unitary Plan properly.

And for the ultimate sting in the tail, the 430 property owners affected by this either reapply for their consents, or face potential legal action if they don't.

Wow. Way to go Auckland Council.

So you can reapply, you may or may not get resource consent granted again when and if you do, and if you don't reapply, you may face a legal challenge.

What does all this add up to? Money, lots of it. Oh and time. Lots of that too. And stress.

And inconvenience in fact, because if you're one of the people who have to stop your building, or make changes to what you've already built, in order to comply then you've got yourself a pile of inconvenience on top of your wasted money and your wasted time.

So a couple of questions: One, how on earth did the council manage to misinterpret its own rules? And two, where's the compensation for those affected?

Well apparently the council will pay for the new consents (and so it should) and it will "look at" compensation, in "some cases".

That part does not fill me with hope. The council needs to do better than that.

When it's your botch up, compensation should be a given, not just something you'll "look at".