What is the Fees & Charges Policy?

Regional Council’s core function is to ensure the sustainable management of natural physical resources.

The Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) sets out how we should manage our environment. It promotes the sustainable management of natural physical resources and forms the foundation for most of our work.

To carry out this work, we process resource consents, monitor and manage consented and other authorised activities, and monitor the state of the region’s resources.

The costs associated with this work are set under section 36 of the RMA in the Council Charges Policy and we pass these costs along to applicants and consent holders.

The Fees and Charges Policy outlines this in further detail and sets out what activities will incur costs and what these costs will be.

Why has this policy been reviewed?

The policy is reviewed regularly to ensure the charges reflect the cost of carrying out this work. Any changes need to be adopted by Council before they are implemented.

What is proposed?

The Statement of Proposal provides an overview of the proposed changes to our Fees and Charges Policy, which, if adopted, would be introduced from 1 July 2025.

At a glance, the changes we are proposing are:

• Increasing consent application deposit fees.
• Recovery of the actual and reasonable cost of work associated with Fast-Track Approval projects.
• Minor adjustments to some compliance inspection frequencies.
• Applying a 10% increase to four fixed fees, where increases were omitted in the 2024/25 review.
• Applying a general increase to all fees and charges in line with inflation.

See how the proposed changes will be applied to your consent here.

For more information or to have your say please see the tabs at the top of this page

The submission period closes 4pm Monday 14th April