This Road map has been prepared so that you understand our approval process and to assist you in communicating with us over this period.
Receiving the application
Thank you for your application. Unless you previously applied for a Project Information Memorandum (PIM) Council must process a PIM at the same time as your Building Consent application.
The Administration Team checks if the application is complete when it is received. If it is not completed they will contact you for the incomplete items.
If you do not supply these items within 3 days, the application will be returned to you. If the application is deemed to be complete, the PIM part of the application is passed to the PIM team and the Building Consent application is forwarded to vetting to check if the application is technically acceptable.
Vetting the application
The application must be checked that it has the required technical components. These components are contained in the checklists within the Building Consent Application Pack must be supplied for Council to check the application.
Council has put a great deal of effort in to providing checklists to ensure that it is easy to supply the required components, without which an application can not be checked.
If you have not supplied these components the application will be returned to you, if you have, then the application will be forwarded to the processing officer.
The processing officer
The Council is required by regulation to allocate applications depending on complexity to specific processing officers and Council is required by law to allocate the consent so that it is able to be issued within 20 working days. A full explanation of this is in the application pack.
In order to meet these two legal requirements, the Council needs to have sufficient numbers of competent staff. The fact that the whole industry is short of technically competent staff means that Council may need to process consents using consultants.
Council will do its utmost to ensure that your building consent is issued within statutory requirements or within our much shorter customer service time frames.
Please note that there is no difference in your consent being processed by our staff or consultants. We only use consultants to ensure that we process your consent as soon as possible.
Processing the application
After initially reviewing the Building consent file, the allocated processing officer schedules the application within his or her workload. Depending on this schedule and depending on the complexity of the application, the application may be checked for structural, effluent or fire design issues by engineers.
As soon as the allocated processing office or engineer determines that there are incorrect or missing information and / or details, a letter or fax is sent to the owner or agent requesting the information.
While the officer waits for the information the application is suspended. If the outstanding information does not have a major impact on the design of your proposed building work and time permits, processing of your application may proceed even if it’s suspended.
Please make sure that you address all items in the request for information, as the absence of information will cause the application to remain suspended.
When all the required information is received and compliance with the Building Code has been achieved, the processing officer grants the Building Consent.
How to communicate
You may well wish to find out the progress of your application. Please 
note that when the application has been accepted and allocated for processing you will receive a letter advising you who the responsible officer is and the date your application was accepted. The responsible officer my change due to work load issues.
Please do not expect immediate progress as the officer needs to schedule the application in to his or her work program. If you have not heard from Council within 8 working days feel free to contact the Call Centre for the progress with your consent number. Because of legal requirements to document any communication, your communication from Council, will be by email or letter.
You can respond to any request for additional information by letter of email. To email correspondence please contact us. Both letters and emails will be recorded in and handed to the responsible officer for assessment.
Processing improvements
Waiting for Council to process your Building Consent application or responding to requests for additional information can be frustrating.
Remember it is you or your designer’s role to demonstrate that you have complied with the Building Code. This is the focus for any information requests.
While we understand that some of Council processes or procedures appear bureaucratic, some of these are required to meet statutory requirements.
There is an ongoing review of our processes and procedures to make our processes more customer friendly and easier to comply with. We also welcome your views and suggestions.
Please study the Building Consent Application Pack to be fully informed as to Councils processes and the next steps in your building consent processes.