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ROCKY BAY NEVER WAS OMIHA

A Waiheke Island Myth Part 1 On Waiheke Island, New Zealand, a myth has grown up among a handful of people in the Rocky Bay Village th...

Friday 18 April 2008

PEOPLE WOULD HATE IT

People in the Hauraki Gulf who are building or planning to build would absolutely hate being under the Thames-Coromandel District Council. It has an online service that shouldn't be allowed in a civilised country. Or even in New Zealand. It is headed Consent Tracking, and it allows people to track resource and building consents. Fancy being so open and transparent! I know the Local Government Act 2002 says councils have to be, but, please, let's keep to Auckland's example and never let the law interfere with policy and bureaucracy (or profligacy).

Click here to see the site.

Nothing good will come of it, obviously.

It is obviously madness to want amalgamation with such a shonky outfit.

;-))

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Footnote: The Resource Management Act 1991 sets a limit of 20 working days for processing resource consents unless there are lawful reasons for extending the time. But a planner on Waiheke of considerable experience told me she had never seen a single consent go through in 20 days [or less]. Another senior planner told me that consents are now taking about eight weeks. The eleven planners processed 407 applications in the 2006/2007 year, an average of about three per planner per month (up from 382 in 2005/2006; in 2007/2008 it was 438; but the meaty applications, for new dwellings, was 121, 125, 121 over those three years, an average of 0.9 per planner per month; the other applications were for alterations, earthworks, trees, etc).

Thames-Coromandel's annual report for 2006/2007 shows that it processed 612 applications in an average of 16.5 days and that 62% were processed in under 18 days. Its target of processing 75% in under 18 days was exceeded in September, November and June. It has ten planners, so they processed an average of about five per planner per month.