• resource consents and upcoming changes to the Resource Management Act that you need to be aware of now
   
• building consents - submitting electronically and a short survey that will help us understand your needs.

Major RMA changes you need to know about

There are a number of Resource Management Act changes you need to be aware of. These changes come into effect for all resource consents lodged on or after 18 October. Below is some initial information and we’ll provide a further update in the next edition of Growing places scheduled for early October. Fact sheets 8, 9 and 10 on the MfE website have good summaries of the changes outlined below.

Changes to information required on subdivision applications – Natural Hazards

One of the big changes to the RMA is how natural hazards are assessed for subdivisions. As a result of the changes you will now be required to provide a risk assessment as part of your geotechnical report submitted with your subdivision application to address the requirements of section 106 of the RMA.  

Waikato District Council have sought some guidance from the Ministry for the Environment who have provided the following information to assist you with understanding what is required to be submitted:  

• Risk based approach to natural hazards under the RMA by Tonkin and Taylor has a section ISO 31000:2009 Risk Management – Principles and Guidelines which will give you a really useful overview. 
• For something more detailed, GNS Science has developed a Risk Based Planning Toolbox which sets out the process step by step with examples and case studies to support.

When you are engaging your geotechnical engineer please make sure that you are providing them with this information and that they are undertaking a risk assessment in accordance with ISO31000:2009 as part of their geotechnical report.  

Permitted Boundary Activities

From 18 October you may be able to apply to Council for a Permitted Boundary Activity if you meet certain criteria set down by the RMA. You will need to demonstrate that you have only one infringement of a boundary rule and you have the written approval of the neighbour of that infringed boundary. Our analysis of past consents shows that on average we process about 50 applications a year that would now qualify for this new process. This is because most applications have another infringement - for example, earthworks or site coverage. 

If you do qualify for a permitted boundary activity your application will be required on a Council specific application form along with all required accompanying information and an application fee. Council will have 10 working days to confirm you are either a permitted boundary activity or you are not.  

We are currently working hard to establish Council specific application forms, written approval forms and guidelines for this process. These guidelines will include a list of all the rules in our district plan that qualify as a “boundary rule”. More details on this process will be available to you by early October along with confirmation of the fee payable. In the meantime you can continue to apply for a resource consent if you do not wish to wait until 18 October. 

Fast Track Resource Consent Applications

You may have heard that there will be a new fast track process for resource consents. The new legislation sets down that this process is only for controlled activity land use consents. If your activity is a controlled activity and you provide an electronic address for service you will qualify for a fast track process and your application will be processed in a maximum of 10 working days instead of 20 days. Our analysis of past consents shows that we processed only 20 controlled activity land use consents in the past year. Some examples of controlled activities include Resites and Dwellings in the Coastal Zone of the Waikato Section of the plan.  

Our application forms will be updated to include a section that applies to fast track applications. We are also working on some guidelines to provide you with a list of all identified controlled activities in our district to help you know whether you qualify. If you do, you will be able to apply for this process from 18 October onwards.  

Changes to Notification Assessment

How we assess if an application needs to be notified will change significantly from 18 October. There are certain types of applications that will be excluded from public notification and, in some cases, limited notification. We are currently developing some Council specific guidelines around these changes, in particular, what activities and zones meet the new definition under the RMA for ‘Residential Activities’. These guidelines will be available to you at the start of October to help you address notification matters in your assessment of environmental effects (AEE). 

Submitting your building consent electronically

We’ve recently made changes to our process to allow us to accept digital building consent applications. Since this was introduced at the end of July we’ve received 34% of building consents electronically. This number is not as high as expected. We understand that some of our customers may not know how to submit their consent electronically or may be struggling with the changes. If you need some help or guidance, please contact us. You can come to see us or we can come and visit you. We also know that some of our customers don’t have the technology to submit their consent electronically. If this is you, please let us know. We can find a solution that works for you. 

There are many benefits to submitting your building consent electronically. 

• A reduction in printing, paper, photocopying, postage or having to travel into one of our offices. 
• Paper applications take time to digitise and get into the system. It takes us less time to prepare digital files for the technical officers.
• The scale of digital files is more accurate. The printing and scanning process means that the scale shown on the plan isn’t accurate, which sometimes results in a request for further information.

Let’s work together to achieve a common goal – to process applications as quickly and effectively as possible. 

Couple of points to note when submitting your building consent electronically

• All amendments to plans must identify the changes from the original (cloud annotation) and the version of the relevant plan should be updated.
• All FIR responses require a cover letter so we understand what information has been supplied. 
• Where possible, please send all information at the same time. If 10 pieces of information are requested but only two things are supplied at a time, without a letter, it is much more difficult to process. 
• Please complete the FIR table/checklist. This is on the second page of the FIR letter we send you. Please return this with each piece of information you send in (even if you have to ‘drip feed’ it).

Complete our short survey about electronic building consents

Please take two minutes to complete our survey about building consents, to help us meet your needs. 

Questions?

If you have any questions, please get in touch.