Resource Management Fees & Charges

Resource management planning services fees and charges listed below are imposed under the Resource Management Act 1991 to recover the cost to 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 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.

Policy Fees and charges

Activity type	Description	Deposit
Notices of requirement	Actual cost at hourly rate	$2,000
Amendments to notices of requirement	Actual cost at hourly rate	$1,000
Private plan change requests	Actual cost at hourly rate	$5,000

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;
• For private plan changes accepted pursuant to Clause 25(2)(b) of the First Schedule, but not private plan changes adopted pursuant to Clause 25(2)(a) of the First Schedule, unless a specific agreement for cost sharing is entered into by the person/s requesting the plan change and the Council.

Resource consents

Activity type	Description	Deposit
Hearings for resource consents	Actual costs at hourly rate plus disbursements
Non-notified land use	Actual cost at hourly rate	$1,000
Limited notified land use	Actual cost at hourly rate	$1,560
Notified land use	Actual cost at hourly rate	$2,470
Non-notified subdivision (controlled activity)	Actual cost at hourly rate	$1,200
Non-notified subdivision (other than controlled activity)	Actual cost at hourly rate	$1,400
Notified subdivision	Actual cost at hourly rate	$2,700
Non-notified conjoined land use and subdivision	Actual cost at hourly rate	$1,700
Signage – land use	Actual cost at hourly rate	$490
Certificates of compliance	Actual cost at hourly rate	$420
Applications for Right-of-Way easement (s348 Local Government Act 1974)	Actual cost at hourly rate	$420
Permitted Boundary Activities	Fixed fee	$300*
Marginal or temporary activities	Actual cost at hourly rate	$300
Existing use certificates	Actual cost at hourly rate	$715
Outline plan of works	Actual cost at hourly rate	$420
Waiver for requirement for outline plan of works	Fixed fee	$300*
Heritage Buildings – Alterations and additions of heritage buildings and items (excluding demolition or relocation)	No set deposit for non-notified applications: additional charges will apply for external and specialist inputs if required
Hearings for resource consent applications	Actual costs 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)   s128 review if requested	Actual cost at hourly rate	$700
Extensions of time (s125)	Fixed fee	$420*
Subdivision certificates (s223, s224)	Actual cost at hourly rate including officer time spent on compliance including site visits
	s223 only	$130
	s224 only	$260
	s223 and s224	jointly $330
Cancellation of building line restrictions	Actual cost at hourly rate
Section 221 change or cancel consent conditions	Fixed fee	$339*
Section 226 – separation of title	Fixed fee	$339*

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

Notes

Section 36 of the Resource Management Act 1991 enables the Wanganui District 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. 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.

Deposits 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 deposits 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 deposit paid.

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

If at any time Council exceeds the statutory timeframes for processing a resource consent then 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 fixed charge is inadequate to cover the actual and reasonable costs of the Council.

Council officer	Rate per hour
Planning Team leader / Lead Policy Planner	$170
Senior Town Planner	$150
Town Planner	$140
Policy Planner	$140
Graduate Town Planner/Graduate Policy Planner	$100
Council Technical officer (e.g. infrastructure engineer, heritage advisor, etc.)	$130
Hearing Commissioner	At cost plus disbursements
Consultant and legal fees associated with all work types	At cost plus disbursements
Administration	$90