Building Consent Statutory Timeframe 20 days

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laspaz, Jan 3, 7:23am
Is it unrealistic to expect the council to process my application within this time period? Obviously different councils will have higher or lower workloads, but is it common for them to go well over the 20 days?

Thanks.
survivalkiwi, Jan 3, 7:32am
Yes it is common and normal. One of their tricks when they are to busy is to find a fault in the plans . That allowes them to stop work on that plan and move onto another one.
It is time they looked at ways to speed up the system. A good way would be to put more responsibility on the designers so the time spent working on the consent was reduced.
golfdiver, Jan 3, 7:40am
It totally depends on their workload and how well prepared your application is. 20 days sounds pretty good,
laspaz, Jan 3, 7:45am
Ok cheers, just trying to get a feel for how much longer it might take. I am on day 11 of 20 according to the website. I should have budgeted way more time for everything!
survivalkiwi, Jan 3, 7:49am
It can also depend on what it is for. If it's something simple such as a log burner going into a basic house ,then that would go through quickly., or often kitset garages can go through very fast. But things at different councils can be different.
laspaz, Jan 3, 7:56am
Yeah might be part of it, this is for the relocation of a dwelling and also building an implement shed. I did the application and don't really know what I am doing to be honest. They did the vetting and only asked for a couple of extra things so hopefully they have what they need. According to the website they haven't actually started the application yet.
chantilly, Jan 3, 8:23am
What council are you with? Have you included a resource consent? And if you are relocating onto ex farmland you will need a HAIL report. We have just done an ex school classroom with a separate utility room. We are with Waikato council.First attempt at consent took 20 days and then were told we needed a resource consent, among other things. Second submission took another 20 days and even then we had to get the local councillor to light a fire under them. We had even gone in there with the original submission and they went through it and said it looked fine, but they missed that there was no resource consent. Good luck!
laspaz, Jan 3, 8:30am
South Waikato District Council. Technically I needed a RC but after much discussion with the senior planning manager, sharing my vision and a meeting the planners said I would be able to proceed without one and just get a BC. It is ex-farmland, and I had to answer questions about soil contamination but have not had a HAIL report, will look into that thank you. It may be because it's a new subdivision and that may have been undertaken in the subdivision process itself?.
trade4us2, Jan 3, 11:33am
It took me a year to get a permit to build a carport, because it was closer than 6 metres to the road. And the permit and plans cost more than the materials.
elect70, Jan 3, 4:59pm
In the 90 s I had new house plan appproved within 2 weeks , but today it takes at double the time . wonder why , deliberatly dragging the chain ?
laspaz, Jan 3, 6:34pm
The bloody engineer took 2&1/2 months to do their bit and I thought that was mental.
survivalkiwi, Jan 3, 7:33pm
Back in the 90s I can remember taking a plan into the chch council and writing mirror image on it. And then drawing my own site and drainage plans.
And then building the house off the mirrored image.
golfdiver, Jan 3, 9:07pm
No Iwi considerations required?
tezw1, Jan 3, 10:57pm
Not always the Designers fault, I recently had 2 similar alteration plans go into different councils 1 came back with 1 question that already had the answer in the submitted documents, 1 came back with 27 questions, 24 of which were already answered in the submitted documents, 2 of which were typo's and 1 that was an oversight by me. So do I charge the client for drafting a letter that pointed out the bloody obvious to the inspector?
cameron-albany, Jan 4, 7:00pm
just a thought - have you factored in the statutory clock-stop which is from Dec 20 until Jan 10 (I think). It's about 3 weeks anyway. Those days don't count in the 20 working days. It's just a pain if you submitted your application in December!
laspaz, Jan 4, 7:09pm
Yeah thanks for this. The clock stopped on about the 20th of December on day 11, and has not started again yet. Maybe next week!
articferrit, Jan 4, 7:13pm
Simple? log burner? house? 20 days - you are joking!, took 6 applications and about 70 sheets of paper, and a different (difficult) person every time, and a new number issued every time, but luckily they had a paper trail they could refer back to each and every time. I was finally threatened that they wouldnt issue the code of compliance because they werent 'satisfied' - even though I already had it! Good luck.
laspaz, Jan 4, 7:18pm
Ah f*ck.
loud_37, Jan 4, 7:55pm
I applied for a building consent, they came back with a heap of questions, I put the consent in the to hard basket and just did the job anyway.
strathview, Jan 4, 8:22pm
One of our permits got held up. They never contacted us to ask any questions but we had followed up and found it was because according to the council we needed to put a culvert in. Told them if they dug the ditch we would put the culvert it. We got our consent.
The next time they tried their best to hold up the process by telling us that according to them we needed a resource consent. This time they actually phoned us to tell us. Wow. Went to see them and informed them that since our parcel of land was not in the special area with native bush or sand hills that a consent was not required. They had to back down which pissed them off as that was another $1000 they couldn't get. Then they tried the old your septic tank is not big enough for a five bedroom home. What plan are you looking at Mr council man as we are building a four bedroom home. According to the council our lounge could be a bedroom. Really! There are only four of us going to be living there. Their answer was to then send the septic tank plans to another organisation to be peer reviewed! Oh yes they charged us another $360 for that too. It was the standard septic system that they had been recommending and approving.
Then they refused to sign off the house because according to them we had to put in a mailbox bay. So we had to pay another $3600 using one of their signed off providers to put in a mailbox bay (without the wooden post and the mailbox) and they then provided our Code of compliance cert. Still havn't installed a mailbox as we have a PO box.
supernova2, Jan 6, 11:10am
Some time ago we applied to the RDC for a BC for an onsuite. Consisted of putting a PVC showerbox, basin and dunny into an existing room.

So only plan required was a floor plan showing where the items went. Vetting appointment - yep application correct so pay the fee and away we go. Oops no plan not good enough so make appointment to discuss. Get told that the staff member who did the vetting was incompetent. Great staff relationship there!. Ok go away draw "better" plan. Make another appointment and what do ya know its the 1st guy who promptly said "why did you need to do this". Well we didn't hold back and told him. BC issued that day!

I'm damm sure the whole lot of council employees are just on a power trip and all hate each other. Are they perhaps on some sort of bonus scheme for being difficult?
laspaz, Jan 6, 11:13am
What an utter waste of time and resources. I might be in trouble because I have done all the plans using mspaint!
loud_37, Jan 6, 12:04pm
I think your right when you say they are on a power trip. I've done some work for the council and the amount of money they just seem to waste is criminal.
loud_37, Jan 6, 12:06pm
If the council was a private company and I had other options we would be using other options, as you don't get value for money spent with them.
laspaz, Jan 12, 12:54pm
Woohoo finally started processing my application this afternoon, with 5 days left on the clock. Unfortunately they have already failed it, not sure why yet.