News

Media release
Thursday 21 November 2013

Residential and business growth continues to accelerate in Selwyn.

 
In the four months to October 2013, more than double the number of new dwelling consents were issued than in the same period last year.  Twice as many commercial and industrial building consents were also issued from July - October 2013 than in this timeframe in 2012.
 
“Our building and resource consent staff had an exceptionally busy year last year. The consent volumes coming in this financial year are much higher than in the same period in 2012 so it seems likely that this year will be even busier than last year,” says John Christensen, Selwyn District Council’s Environmental Services Manager.
 
925 building consents including 638 new dwelling consents have been issued in the four months to the end of October 2013.  The average time to process a building consent was 12 working days.   In the same period last year 302 new dwelling consents were issued, and 1,084 new dwelling consents were issued in the year to June 2013.  
 
Commercial and industrial activity in Selwyn is also increasing. 92 industrial and commercial building consents were issued between July and October 2013, double the number of consents (46) issued in the same period in 2012.
 
Mr Christensen says many of the new consents reflect the fact that Izone is becoming a popular location for businesses and that a number of new businesses are setting up in Selwyn.
 
Resource consent numbers show a similar trend to building consents, 257 resource consents issued between July and October 2013. 167 resource consents were issued in the same period last year.  The average time to issue a resource consent was 12.5 working days.
 
A new online building consent application process was launched early in 2013 to make it easier and faster for people to lodge a building consent.  Training sessions for customers were carried out to familiarise regular users with the new system and to help refine and simplify the online application process.
 
The new system is popular with customers, with 87% of customers saying online application process was clear and easy to complete.
 
“The process of lodging consents with Selwyn District Council is now even simpler and more straightforward that it was before, and the previous system was great too,” says Steve Butterworth, Director of SWB Design Ltd, one of the businesses who used the online consent process.
 
“Selwyn has, in our opinion, the best online application system we have experienced to date. We hope that other Building Consent Authority’s will look at implementing a similar online application service,” he says.
 
Selwyn District Council was recently re-accredited as a Building Consent Authority by IANZ(International Accreditation New Zealand).  This is the second time the Council has been accredited with no corrective actions identified as needing to be taken by the Council to retain its Building Consent Authority status.
 
“The audit process to be reaccredited as a Building Consent Authority is very thorough and detailed and it is unusual for Councils to be re-accredited without having to make any changes or improvement to their existing processes. We are very pleased with this result as it gives our customers and the public confidence that our building consent systems and processes are of a high standard,” says John Christensen.
 

For more information, contact:
 
John Christensen
Selwyn District Council
03 347 2806
[email protected]