$3.5m top up for ECan consents as it struggles to meet required time frame

Thursday, 26 October 2023

ECan is taking too long to process some consent applications, requiring it to give fee discounts to affected applicants.

Environment Canterbury (ECan) processed only a third of resource consents within the legal time frame in the last financial year.

The figure was revealed as the council voted unanimously on Wednesday to pour another $3.5 million into consent processing “to address immediate performance risks”.

Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers president David Acland said delays for “relatively simple” renewals were costing farmers tens of thousands of dollars and warned that fixing the problem was “not just a matter of employing more people.

“It’s about getting regulation that can actually be worked with, rather than regulation that impedes.”

Have you had experience of ECan consent delays? Tell your story to keiller.macduff@stuff.co.nz

ECan agreed to unbudgeted additional funding for two of its three core functions - consent processing and public transport - acknowledging “challenges” in meeting statutory obligations and demand “beyond the level of resource available.”

Consents planning manager Aurora Grant said 318 (34.8%) of the 914 resource consent decisions issued in the 2022-23 financial year were processed within the required time frame.

ECan processes the most resource consent applications of any regional council – between 1500 and 2200 a year.

Chairperson Peter Scott and Environment Canterbury councillors approved a bid for $3.5m in funding to help with a backlog - and expected increase - of consent applications. (File photo)

The volume and increasing complexity of the applications, along with changing community expectations and regulations, required a higher level of detail from applicants and more robust auditing by the council, Grant said.

Operations director Stephen Hall said the money would “get us back on track” and clear the consenting backlog “in a year’s time”.

In addition to the current workload and backlog, an estimated 10,500 of Canterbury's 24,000 active resource consents will expire over the next decade.

ECan processes the most resource consent applications of any regional council. (File photo)

Regulatory services general manager Judith Earl-Goulet said the council aimed to have 95% of its consent processing meet statutory deadlines by December 2024

Councillor Deon Swiggs asked staff how the issue was not picked up earlier, and whether there would systems in place to stop it happening again, especially given the “massive” amount of consents looming.

Chief executive Stefanie Rixecker said a review was under way, and pointed to the way the council invoices and uses spreadsheets, the increased likelihood of human error from “cutting and pasting”, delays for science advice, and the need for a more seamless relationship with Papatipu Rūnanga, as “just a handful of identified areas we have to lift”.

ECan had the most sophisticated freshwater plans, the largest amount of freshwater and largest number of consents of any region, and faced an “unprecedented amount of change from central government,” she said.

Federated Farmers provincial president for Mid-Canterbury David Acland is hoping the new government will usher in changes to the balance between water quality and economic benefits.

The Christchurch City Council has also had long-standing consent delays, with it and ECan both citing staffing shortages and increasingly complex applications.

When ECan foreshadowed rates rises at the start of the year, it pointed to consent delays and the cost to ratepayers of fee discounts councils have to apply - 1% for each day past the statutory deadlines, up to a maximum of 50%.

Between July 2022 and February 2023, discounts cost city council ratepayers $750,000, while ECan used general reserves to cover $2m worth of discounts.

Federated Farmers spokesman David Acland said ECan was “nowhere near as flexible around consenting as say, Southland or Otago”, particularly in relation to winter grazing.

He said the National Policy Statement on freshwater and Te Mana o Te Wai was “nigh on impossible for ECan to navigate” - an issue the group had been raising for years.

Acland hoped the new government would reconsider the balance given to National Policy Statement and Te Mana o Te Wai requirements, which give consideration to water “above all else”.

“It doesn’t matter whether something’s going to bring multibillion-dollar benefits to your community, if it has a detrimental effect on the wai of the water you can’t proceed.”

ECan’s website warns the time frame for most applications to be allocated to a planner was about eight weeks, and that fixing “the processing delays is not an easy or quick task”.

It states the council was continuing to “look at attracting additional staff”, but was “outsourcing work to external consultants and redeploying staff” where possible.