Council making changes to building consent processes

Tauranga City Council chief executive Garry Poole. Photo/file

Tauranga City Council will be making changes to its building consents processes after complaints from the public.

This afternoon the council released a report by BDO that included feedback from developers, builders, members of the public, an internal survey and interviews. More than 300 people provided input into the review. The council announced the review in March following complaints from some members of the public.

BDO was asked to review three key areas, including the culture and leadership of the council's building department, its dealings with Bella Vista Homes, and the formulation, approval and application of its geotech policy.

Council chief executive Garry Poole said the council would now work with the industry to implement the recommendations.

"The report has shown areas where we need to do better and has raised some issues for us to consider," he said.

Mr Poole was pleased the report did not find any evidence of deliberate actions or slowing of consents related to Bella Vista or any other developer.

Tauranga City Council outsources some consent processing services to other councils and private companies. In March, around 50 per cent of consents were outsourced. Mr Poole said the report raised questions related to the procurement of an external supplier, Holmes Farsight.

"It is clear that we did not follow our own procurement policies, which is disappointing and we need to understand why this happened," he says.

"Ratepayers should be able to have confidence in council's processes, so we have engaged respected forensic accountants Beattie Varley Limited to look into this further.

"We want to assure everyone that this does not cast any doubt on the work undertaken by Holmes Farsight or the consents they were part of assessing."

Mr Poole said the report rightly pointed out that the council's old way of accepting and entering building consents into its system was not efficient or effective.

"However, we have largely already dealt with that by the introduction of our cloud-based system Alpha One in March," he said.

"Tauranga City Council has a responsibility to our community to consider all complaints and that is what we have done. We will be learning from this review and taking action to improve the way we do things in future."