Need a resource consent yesterday?

It’s the exasperated cry we hear every day. The realities of project deadlines, funding requirements, spiralling interest payments, contractor availability and basic human psychology dictate that everyone needs their resource consent as fast as humanly possible. Unfortunately, many learn the hard way that gaining resource consent can be a long and arduous process.

So, how do you achieve the fastest resource consent possible? Well, while it probably won’t surprise you that we’d recommend the use of the right consultants (apologies for the spoiler!), the reasons for this may surprise you.

First, although not all resource consents are complicated, frankly, a lot of them are – and they are often complex in ways that are not obvious at the outset. Perhaps you need consent to retain and level your back yard. That sounds simple right? But maybe not so simple when Council advises that your property has soil contamination, there is an overland flowpath through it, or there is a wastewater drain where you want to retain.

Factors like these are just consenting reality, and if not identified early they can blow out consent timeframes and result in a lot of stress, additional cost and frustration. A quick look through your plans with one of our experienced planners can curtail these costly mistakes and could potentially shave months off your consent process.

Second, a resource consent application often requires involvement from various specialists. You’ll need a surveyor for a topographical plan, an architect/draftsperson to design your buildings, an engineer to design drainage/driveways, an ecologist to advise on bush removal, a planner to write an assessment of environmental effects, and the list can go on.

The overall speed of the resource consent depends greatly on the way these various specialist work with each other, work with Council and most importantly, work with you, the client. Very often the delays that occur in resource consent process occur because of bottlenecks and miscommunications as your consent is passed between different specialist, each of whom is focused only on their piece of the puzzle.

An integrated team, like the service we provide at Thomas Consultants, can stream line this process by over seeing your resource consent application. We are focused on the process as a whole, not just the individual pieces.

To end with some shameless self promotion (because why not?!) here are some of the ways Thomas Consultants is uniquely positioned to obtain your resource consent as fast as possible:

• Thomas Consultants has all the core resource management professions in-house (and great working relationships with external specialists) so we work extremely time efficiently with one another, to dot all the “i’s” and cross the “t’s”, and minimise the potential for Council to ask questions once your application is lodged
• Thomas Consultants has very close working relationships with Council , with many staff being former employees of Council and Council being a major client of ours. This allows us to communicate swiftly with Council and resolve issues as quickly as possible.
• Thomas Consultants prides itself on being easy to work with. We are a friendly bunch who believe in clear communication and a no surprises approach. We know that the consent process can take some ugly twists and turns, and so we are constantly striving to provide the best customer service we can, understand your needs, and translate this into speedy project delivery times and swift issue resolution.

If you would like more information about how Thomas Consultants can help you with your project, please contact us on info@tcec.co.nz.