Off a cliff: ECan’s consenting efforts plummet to fresh low

Friday, 20 September 2024

Environment Canterbury ranks at the bottom of the country’s 11 regional councils for processing non-notified consents within the legal time frame.

The dismal placing has led one Federated Farmers leader to call for ECan’s chief executive to step down if the council can’t meet its target.

Canterbury’s regional council processed 26% of resource consent applications within the statutory time frame in 2023/24, significantly below its target of 95%.

This was down on 2022/23, when 35% of resource consent decisions were processed in time.

Although resource consents are intended to be user pays, under the Resource Management Act (RMA), councils have 20 working days to process non-notified resource consent applications, and must discount fees at a rate of 1% for each working day beyond that, up to a maximum of 50 days.

That time frame does not include when the “clock is stopped” following requests for information.

ECan had to take funding from other areas last year to pay for consent delays, speed up processing and bring on new staff, at a cost of $5.4m.

Federated Farmers national vice president Colin Hurst said consent costs were “in theory borne by the consent applicant,” and fees refunded from general rates “shouldn’t happen”.

“Management needs to severely look at themselves. Councillors employed a CEO and the CEO’s job is to manage. The CEO needs to go.”

Hurst acknowledged the size of ECan’s region (the largest geographic area of any regional council), and unique conditions that made Canterbury’s consenting complex.

“It is a large area, no question about it, and we’ve had the Land and Water Regional Plan for quite a while, which obviously requires a lot of consenting, we have a lot of irrigation in Canterbury, which is a lot of consenting too.”

Consent processing problems were widespread, and due to broad issues with the RMA, he said.

“This has been happening all around the country to a lesser or more degree, but it’s happened more in Canterbury…” due to irrigation, intensification, and the Land and Water plan, Hurst said.

But Environment Canterbury chief executive Dr Stefanie Rixecker had full confidence in her team to deliver results.

As chief executive, she was “ultimately responsible”, and the council was aware of “community frustration” caused by the consent processing challenges.

“The reasons for these challenges are well documented.”

Rixecker said the council’s 2023 Sustainable Consents Delivery plan was “working well”.

Around 70% of consent applications lodged since December 2023 have been processed within statutory timeframes, and the council was on track to have all legacy consent applications addressed by the end of the year, she said.

ECan’s new 10-year long-term plan, adopted in May, contains targets to meet the statutory time frame for half of consents by 2024-25, increasing to 95% in 2025-26.

In staff reports, ECan points to a “high numbers of applications”, changing expectations from mana whenua and the community, new legislation and increasingly degraded rivers, lakes and wetlands among the reasons it was unable to meet the legislated time frame.

Each council had different rules on which activities were permitted and which required consents, and the threshold for notifying a consent, which made direct comparisons difficult.

However, the Ministry for the Environment’s National Monitoring System data shows the median time for all councils (including district councils) to process consents in 2022/23 (the most recent data available via NMS) was 20 working days, which did not include when the clock was stopped.

Nationwide, 76% of new resource consents were processed within the statutory time limits in 2022/23, a 4% reduction from the previous year.

Other councils that processed similar numbers of consent applications in 2022/23 were Otago, Northland, Southland and Waikato.

Otago Regional Council processed 772 consents in 2023/24, 100% within the RMA time frame.

Northland Regional Council processed 100% of resource consent applications within the statutory time frames.

Environment Southland’s RMA time frame compliance over the 2023/24 year was 100%.

Waikato Regional Council processed 98% of resource consents within the statutory time frame.

Greater Wellington processed 100%of resource consents in the statutory time frame.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council processed 98.5% within the statutory time frame.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council processed 98% within the timeframe.

Neither Horizons Regional Council (which covers the Manawatū-Whanganui region), nor West Coast Regional Council met their councils respective targets for consent processing.

Horizons processed 79% within statutory time frames, short of it’s 85% performance measure.

West Coast Regional Council processed 100% of consents in the first three quarters, but did not meet the time frame overall.

The council’s performance reporting is a pass/fail test, “which means if even only one consent is not processed on time it's considered a fail”, WCRC group manager regulatory and policy Jocelyne Allen said.

University of Technology Sydney local government expert Dr Andy Asquith said delays and discounts meant ECan was not meeting user pays obligations, instead “making everyone else subsidise what they’re doing“.

“Local government is there to serve the community - if it’s not doing that, what’s the purpose? It’s time for people to move on and step aside and let people who do want to serve the community do so.”