Resource management and policy / planning fees and charges

All fees and charges include GST unless otherwise stated

Resource consents

All activities (unless noted otherwise) are charged based on actual cost at the hourly rates noted in the council officer hourly rates – policy / planning and resource consents section below. The base fees are as follows:

Activity type	Fee
Hearings for resource consents	Actual costs at hourly rate plus disbursements
Non-notified land use	$2100
Limited notified land use	$2650
Publicly notified land use	$3700
Non-notified subdivision (controlled activity)	$2100
Non-notified subdivision (other than controlled activity)	1-3 lots – $2650 4-7 lots – $3200 8 or more lots – $3600
Notified subdivision	$4800
Non-notified conjoined land use and subdivision	1-3 lots – $3100 4-7 lots – $3600 8 or more lots – $4000
Notified conjoined land use and subdivision (*NEW)	$5300
Signage – land use	$520
Certificates of compliance	$800
Applications for right-of-way easement (s348 Local Government Act 1974)	$800
Permitted boundary activities	Fixed fee $370*
Marginal or temporary activities	$370
Existing use certificates	$760
Outline plan of works	$445
Waiver for requirement for outline plan of works	Fixed fee $320*
Heritage buildings – alterations and additions of heritage buildings and items (excluding demolition or relocation)	No set base fee for non-notified applications – additional charges will apply for external and specialist inputs if required, including hearing costs
Hearings for resource consent applications	Actual cost at hourly rate plus disbursements
All advertising, consultant and legal fees associated with all work types including assessment of applications (including specialist technical or legal advice) and new Notices of Requirement, designation alterations, removal of designations and District Plan changes.	Actual cost at hourly rate plus disbursements
Monitoring of non-notified and notified land use consents after granting	Actual cost at hourly rate per consent for inspections plus cost of monitoring officer time spent on compliance including site visits Please note – all land use initial application fees include 1 hour of officer time for monitoring
Variation to conditions (s127 and land use)	$1270
s128 review if requested	Actual cost at hourly rate
Extensions of time (s125)	$1270
Subdivision certificates (s223, s224)
s223 only	$320
s224 only – see below
No engineering conditions	$320
Engineering conditions included, servicing allotments but not vesting infrastructure	$480
Engineering conditions where land/work vesting in council on deposit of plan and inspections have been carried out under NZS4404:2010. Completion inspection will be charged at the engineer hourly rate for all participants. Repeated works completion inspection/approval due to non-compliance will be charged at engineer hourly rate for all participants.	$1600
s223 and s224	N/A
Cancellation of building line restrictions	Actual cost at hourly rate
Section 221 change or cancel consent notice	$1270
Section 226 – separation of title	$1270
All other certificates	$480

* Fixed fees are non-refundable, and no additional charges will be applied

Policy / planning

Resource management planning services fees and charges listed below are imposed under the Resource Management Act 1991 to recover the cost to the council for processing applications to designate land and make privately-initiated changes to the District Plan.

Section 36 of the Resource Management Act 1991 enables the council to charge additional fees to recover actual and reasonable costs when the fixed fee is inadequate.

Notices of requirement and private plan changes vary in degree of complexity and scope. This means that applications shall be charged at actual cost when reasonable. Consultants’ and solicitors’ fees associated with all work types are also included (see schedule of additional charges below). There may be times where the council refunds part of the fee at its discretion if the work required to process the application is minimal.

The initial application fees specified in the tables below are required up front and no action will be taken in accordance with s36(7) until paid. That does not mean that the council is required to complete the activity upon payment of the fee. The costs incurred will be monitored and additional amounts up to the total of the fixed charge may be required. Then additional charges may also be required before completion of the task if the fixed charges are inadequate to cover the council’s actual and reasonable costs.

Activity type	Fee
Notices of requirement	$3700
Amendments to notices of requirement	$2100
Private plan change requests	$16,000

Note

The fees and charges apply to applications:

• Relating to a notice of requirement or amendments to or cancellations of a notice of requirement pursuant to s168, s168A, s181, and s182 of the Resource Management Act 1991, but not applications subject to s170 or clause 4 of the First Schedule which shall be processed at no cost to the requiring authority.

Notes

Section 36 of the Resource Management Act 1991 enables the council to charge additional fees. These are fees to recover the actual and reasonable costs incurred where the actual costs exceed the lodgement fee paid. The council will charge the applicable staff charge-out rate together with the costs associated with employing the services of professional consultant, specialist reports or peer reviews where necessary.

Base fees and fixed fees are set at 100% of the average actual and reasonable costs associated with an activity type. Except as required by provisions of the Resource Management Act, refunds of base fees will only be paid where the remaining funds are greater than the administrative cost of providing that refund.

Interim invoices for the processing of resource consents may be generated when costs exceed the base fee paid.

The council will recover actual and reasonable costs associated with any required consent hearing from the applicant.

If at any time the council exceeds the statutory timeframes for processing a resource consent then the council will refund 1% of costs per day that the timeframe was exceeded as per the discount provisions of the Resource Management Act 1991.

Additional items

The fixed charges do not include other charges that may be imposed under the Resource Management Act 1991 or other legislation, such as:

• Additional charges
• Bonds
• Monitoring and supervision charges expressly provided for in a resource consent.

If the fixed charges are not sufficient to meet the council’s actual and reasonable costs then additional charges may be payable in accordance with the attached schedule of additional charges.

The council will finally fix its fees including:

• Charging the fixed charge or part thereof
• Charging the fixed charge and additional charges under section 36(3) having regard to the following criteria in section 36(4).

Final charges will be charged at staff hourly rates, technical officer or consultant time and any standard fees applicable.

Monitoring and inspection charges are based on staff hourly rates to complete, with one hour of monitoring taken in at the initial application stage of land use consents.

Schedule of additional charges

The following schedule of charges shall form the basis for calculating any additional charges under section 36(3) in the event that the fixed charges are not sufficient to cover the council’s actual and reasonable costs.

Consultants and solicitors – consultants’ and solicitors’ fees associated with all work types, including the processing of a consent or certificate (including specialist technical or legal advice where a consent involves creating legal instruments) shall be at cost plus disbursement.

Charges for hearings – hearings for all applications shall be at cost of officer’s time per-hour rates listed below.

Order papers – the production of order papers shall be at cost plus disbursements.

Council officer hourly rates – policy / planning and resource consents

The following hourly rates for council officers and decision-makers will be charged for the processing of consents, hearings, etc that do not have a fixed charge or where the base fee is inadequate to cover the actual and reasonable costs of the council.

Council officer	Hourly rate
Planning team leader / principal policy planner	$230
Senior planner / senior policy planner	$210
Planner / policy planner	$190
Graduate planner / graduate policy planner	$160
Council technical officer (eg: infrastructure engineer, heritage advisor, etc)	$190
Hearing Commissioner	At cost plus disbursements
Consultant and legal fees associated with all work types	At cost plus disbursements
Administration	$140