Emergency meeting last chance for quake council
‘We do need to resolve this situation.’
THE Government is threatening to step in if an emergency meeting with the Christchurch City Council tomorrow cannot find a solution to the city’s consenting crisis.
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Local Government Minister Chris Tremain will outline options to councillors, but Prime Minister John Key refused yesterday to give details.
He said the move by independent Crown agency IANZ to remove the council’s accreditation, effective Friday, was unprecedented. ‘‘We do need to resolve this situation. It’s critically important for the rebuild [that] the process is speeded up.’’
He was keen to find a solution the council would accept. ‘‘In the end the Government would need to take steps if that could not be resolved,’’ he said. ‘‘With the right solution it’ll speed up the rebuild.’’
The Government would have faced strong opposition if it had stepped in earlier, such as through regional council ECan, and taken over all the council processes.
‘‘The consenting function is fundamentally the core business of the council and that’s our preference for where it stays. But we don’t control and didn’t control the loss of its accreditation by IANZ.’’
He had visited Christchurch last week and was conscious of the frustrations faced by Cantabrians.
Cash had been released from insurance settlements, and there was pressure on house prices and rents. To alleviate those, houses needed to be built. Builders were also keen to see ‘‘a pipeline of work’’.
Without IANZ accreditation the council could continue to give consents, but there was a technical issue about whether they were accredited consents. That could have ramifications, including over issues of liability.
When the Government two weeks ago provided more resources, through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, there was no certainty it would provide breathing space, Mr Key said. ‘‘Everyone understood that was a high possibility [it would go to this step].’’
He did not expect the proposed solution to spark an exodus of staff from the council. It would instead look at managing their workflow and adding capacity, using the ‘‘breadth and depth’’ of resources available to the Government.
Mr Brownlee said the aim was to develop a longer-term solution that ensured the council delivered ‘‘timely, quality consents’’ and that it won back IANZ accreditation. ‘‘Until that discussion is held I don’t want to speculate about other possible Government actions.’’