Charge to monitor consents
FTimaru residents and businesses who break the terms of their resource consents will soon have to pay fees for the monitoring of their consents, as the district council attempts to recoup ‘‘significant costs’’ created by people who don’t follow the rules.
Councillors voted unanimously at an environmental services committee meeting on Tuesday to bring fees in on an ‘‘as and when required’’ basis, rather than having ratepayers cover the entire cost of monitoring consents. The fees are estimated to generate between $20,000 and $60,000 a year for the Timaru District Council.
In the council’s current annual plan a single site inspection fee is $200, and additional monitoring fees are $130 an hour - but the council has never charged people for additional monitoring costs.
Environmental services committee chairman Kerry Stevens said after the meeting the fees were more appropriate than ratepayers covering the cost, and would encourage people to selfpolice to ensure they were sticking to the terms of their consents.
‘‘I think it’s a necessary step. Someone needs to pay for that.’’
The decision will be confirmed at the next council meeting, on October 31.
A report prepared for the council’s environmental services committee said consent-holders benefited from being allowed to conduct the activity to which the consent related.
‘‘Therefore it is appropriate that they pay the cost of monitoring that consent,’’ the report said.
‘‘The need for multiple monitoring visits is normally a result of the consent-holder not complying with consent conditions, therefore it is appropriate that they are charged for that cost.
‘‘Charging additional fees will assist with achieving compliance.’’
South Canterbury Chamber of Commerce chief executive Wendy Smith said all the chamber could say was it hoped the change was ‘‘a genuine recovery of costs’’ on the part of the council, and it would be transparent in its enforcement of the monitoring costs.
Councillor Paddy O’Reilly told other councillors at the meeting while he supported the move it was important the correct information went out to the public, and he predicted there would be ‘‘a lot of people complaining’’.
However Registered Master Builders Timaru branch president Steven Brooks said the change to a ‘‘user-pays’’ system seemed ‘‘pretty self-explanatory’’ to him.
‘‘They’ve got to cover their costs.’’.
When asked if he thought it would have an effect on property prices in the Timaru District, Brooks said resource consents were generally the ‘‘smallest part’’ of a subdivision.
The report to the council said if monitoring costs were not funded by fees and charges, they would be funded by general rates.
Subdivision consent can be granted for things such as boundary adjustments, the creation of two or more freehold titles, amendments to cross-lease, unit title and company lease plans to show additions, alterations and accessory buildings.
Figures for the latest financial year were not yet available, and the council was working on generating the number of compliance breaches.
The Timaru District Council grants only two kinds of resource consents, land use and subdivision. Other consents, for instance relating to discharge to air or water, fall under the jurisdiction of regional council Environment Canterbury.
Up-to-date figures of the number of breaches of Timaru District Council-granted resource consents were not available on Tuesday.