We work with the community to promote the sustainable management of Bay of Plenty's natural physical resources. As part of this work we manage the environmental impacts of activities through the issuing and monitoring of consents. The costs associated with this work are passed along to applicants and consent holders.

The Resource Management Act 1991 and Building Act 2004 form the foundation of the majority of our work. The proposed Fees and Charges Policy (“Charges Policy”) sets out our charges under these Acts, and also changes to Charges under our Bylaws and general cost recoverable work.

A review of our Resource Management Act and Building Act charges was carried out in 2021 to ensure the charges reflect the true cost of carrying out our work. This was done in line with our Long Term Plan 2021-31.

We have simplified the presentation of our fees and charges policy following feedback from previous years. There are three main areas of change that we would like your feedback on:

Change 1: Compliance monitoring is conducted on a risk basis. The proposed changes will be to Rotorua Plan Change 10 compliance charges from actual and reasonable charges to fixed fees. This will result in smaller and certain annual charges rather than less frequent, uncertain and larger charges to consent holders.

Change 2: All fees and charges have been reviewed. We are proposing:

• A lower deposit for minor consent variations.
• An increase of approximately 7% to most charges.

Change 3: Regional Council has waived some fees to enable non-profits (including Marae) to upgrade systems related to on-site effluent treatment and achieve fully compliant status. This will help improve health and environmental risk.

The full schedule of changes is shown in the proposed policy (under documents) with tracked changes. There is also the Fees and Charges Policy Statement of Proposal. You can also search for any proposed new fees here.

Feedback received before 4 May 2022 will be summarised for Regional Council. Those wishing to speak to their submission will have an opportunity to speak to Council at hearings before any recommendations are made. The revised policy will be presented to Regional Council for adoption in late June 2022.