Latest news with #resourceconsent
RNZ News
18-07-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Independent commissioners approve sand mine for 16 years near Hokitika
The West Coast Regional Council will now focus on compliance and monitoring of the resource consent conditions. Photo: Joppi/ 123rf Consent has been granted for a new sand mine near Hokitika. An independent panel of commissioners unanimously approved consent for Westland Mineral Sands' mineral sand ore extraction at the Mananui mine for 16 years. The site is about eight kilometres from Hokitika and will cover 112 hectares. The West Coast Regional Council said the panel's decision concluded the formal consent application process on behalf of the company, and the council would now focus on compliance and monitoring of the resource consent conditions. The panel was selected by the regional council and Westland District Council. In 2023, Gene Wilson, who lives across the road from the site, told RNZ he was concerned about noise, dust, light pollution, water quality and truck movements. Other neighbours said they did not oppose mining, but had concerns about its potential impact and the loss of tranquillity in the small, peaceful town. Westland Mineral Sands also has a sandmine at Cape Foulwind, near Westport. A petition was launched against the Cape Foulwind mine in 2021, while others appealed the resource consent conditions at the Environment Court. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
10-07-2025
- Automotive
- RNZ News
Pensioners camped out at Hamilton carpark for years face uncertain future
People camped out at the Classics Museum in Hamilton. Photo: Google Maps Pensioners camped out in a Waikato carpark are facing an uncertain future after years living on the site, but the carpark owner says most of them cant afford to go anywhere else. The Classics Museum in the Hamilton suburb of Frankton has allowed people living in campervans to park on its land for $50 a week. Hamilton Classics Museum owner Tom Andrews said for the first eight to 10 years he had let people stay there for free, later adding a small charge to try and dissuade masses of people from staying there. Many of them are elderly and on low incomes, with around 20 people staying in the carpark at the moment. "Some of them are pensioners with no money, [and] have had to sell their houses [and] move into busses," Andrews said. Under the Classic Car Museum's resource consent, it is allowed three allocated parking spaces that can be provided for campervans. It also allows for overnight stays only for people visiting the museum, but these are confined to the three allocated areas. Andrews said the council over the years have turned a blind eye to a lot of the overstaying, but a new council employee has come along and "laid down the regulations" to him two weeks ago. The council disputes this, saying they have raised the compliance issue with Andrews a number of times, the first being in 2018. "For a long time, staff have acted with kindness and patience towards resource consent breaches at the site," Hamilton Council planning guidance director Grant Kettle said. However, Kettle said staff had received a complaint that raised a serious fire safety risk at the site due to the number and proximity of the campervans being allowed to stay there. "We have raised with the owner the breach of the resource consent conditions, which were brought to our attention as a result of investigating the fire safety risk," Kettle said. Andrews said there is no fire safety issue as there is around 1.5 acres of land for the campervans to space out, and rather that was a "red herring". "If they want the campervans further apart, all they have to do is ask," Andrews said. Hamilton Council said its staff have provided Andrews with an option which could see campervans stay there under different conditions to the current resource consent. This would require a campground registration for the site, and applying for a new resource consent. "Council has not taken any formal enforcement action as a result of the breach of the resource conditions the site should operate under. No one is being forced out by the council," Kettle said. Kettle said staff had asked Andrews to let council which option they were intending to take within a couple of weeks of the initial meeting on 25 June. "Council has not heard from the owner about what their ongoing intentions are for the site. The owner, not Council, has given the campers until 17 July to end any long-term stays in accordance with the consent conditions. Council is more than willing to work with the owner around the timeframes for when compliance is met," he said. However, Andrews said under the consent process would be costly. "Under that process, they'd make me spend well in excess of $100,000 to make, what they consider, the site compliant with toilet blocks etc., which I am not prepared to do," he said. "We're obviously not getting revenue much from it, and really doing it as a service." Andrews added the people staying at the carpark currently are all self-contained. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
10-07-2025
- RNZ News
Pensioners living in museum carpark face uncertain future
Pensioners camped out in a Waikato carpark are facing an uncertain future after years living on the site, but the carkpark owner says most of them cant afford to go anywhere else. The Classics Museum in the Hamilton suburb of Frankton has allowed people living in campervans to park on its land for $50 a week. Many of them are elderly and on low incomes; some of them have been there for years. But it is a breach of the museum's resource consent that only allows limited short term stays. Now Hamilton City Council has put the landowner on notice. Classics Museum Owner Tom Andrews spoke to Lisa Owen. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
03-07-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
MP Maureen Pugh pitches one-stop-shop for mining consents
MP Maureen Pugh wants a local fast-track system to speed up consent processing times. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone West Coast Tasman MP Maureen Pugh has weighed into the campaign to improve waiting times for miners needing resource consents and other permits. Pugh has suggested a local "mini-version" of the government's fast-track system to speed up consent processing times. Resources Minister Shane Jones gave the West Coast Regional Council a strong serve last week, after it closed down a gold mine site that had waited 17-months for a consent. The council also faced criticised from Cr Brett Cummings, a gold miner himself, whose company had been left waiting six months for consent. Pugh says the Minister is justifiably frustrated at the holdups. "This has been going on for far too long. There are guys that have their mining permits and they're paying up to $20,000 a year to NZ Petroleum and Minerals for the right to mine but they can't even get onto the land because the council hasn't sorted their resource consent or DOC hasn't processed their concession." By comparison, a large-scale miner she knew was able to gain approval to mine in New South Wales in Australia within six weeks, she said. "He's got another one in New Guinea - that took twelve weeks," she said. "[He has] one application active in New Zealand and he's been waiting for two years and he still doesn't know how it's going to go. "The delays are not new but they've just got worse and worse, at a time when we desperately need to grow the economy. It's not how to do business well." In her former career as Westland mayor, Mrs Pugh said she had tried to speed up the bureaucracy by delegating district council land-use consents to the Regional Council to process. "I believe that what we need now is a local fast-track system. A mini-version of the government's one-stop-shop, with one office in the region where every agency involved in a mining application is co-located, and has a staffer. All of these permits should be happening concurrently." Pugh said she had proposed her idea to the Minister (Shane Jones) and he was interested in progressing it. "We've simply got to find a new way of doing this and we can't go on having consultants in the North Island dealing with alluvial goldmining consents down here. "They know nothing about the West Coast so of course they're risk averse about everything and their reports reflect that, and there's the constant for further information and they keep sending applications back and asking for more information, and every time their meters are ticking." The miners' continual outgoings were simply paying the wages of bureaucrats and not generating revenue, Pugh said. "It should all be happening concurrently - as it is you're paying to hold your mining license just in case you can overcome all the other. It's enough to make you tear your hair out." The Regional Council is looking at taking on more consents staff and this week began work on new resource consent templates which it says will simplify and speed up the process for alluvial gold miners. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
RNZ News
01-07-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Owner 'shocked' after being hit with $1400 fee to have three dogs
Owen Haring doesn't think it's justifiable to have to pay that much to have chocolate labrador Holly, dachshund Frankie and golden labrador Harry at his home. Photo: LDR/Max Frethey A Richmond resident has been blindsided by a $1400 fee to keep three dogs on his property. Owen Haring went to register his dogs before the 31 July deadline but was "really shocked" to find out that Tasman District Council requires a resource consent to keep three or more dogs on an urban property. About five minutes down the road, in Nelson City, owners of three dogs require a permit rather than a resource consent because it falls under a different council's rules. Haring has lived on his central Richmond property for seven years and had at least one dog for all that time. The third dog has only recently arrived at his home, having moved in along with his wife following their marriage, and had previously been registered at a different address. Since the three dogs have been on the property, Haring received his first noise complaint related to barking, though he said there was "nothing" in it as someone was almost always with the dogs and any periods of absence would be a "couple of hours at most". It was when dog control first visited after that complaint that Haring first heard about needing a resource consent, which has a $1400 deposit, to have three dogs on his urban property. The consent would be on top of the three charges of $90 to register each dog. "I'll register all three, but I'm not going to be paying the resource consent just because I don't think it's right. How can they justify that?" he asked. "It's a significant amount for people to cough up." Haring didn't want to be "dishonest" by registering the dogs elsewhere and would welcome an officer to conduct an inspection of their property to ensure it was suitable, "but we're not going to be paying $1,400 for red tape," he said. While the $1400 is a deposit, and some of the money could be returned, he said he talked to another resident who went through the process and only received $70 back. "I'm not someone that jumps up and down about anything, but what do you do? Do you choose who's going to go out of the three? It can be pretty stressful." Tasman District Council's group manager environmental assurance Kim Drummond said having three or more dogs on smaller urban properties could increase problems. "This opens up the potential for amenity, odour and noise issues to be more difficult to manage - particularly in the eyes of nearby residents." The resource consent process looks at the potential effects of those three issues on neighbours which is determined, in part, by a site visit from a council staff member. If the effects were low, that would be reflected in the time spent processing the consent, Drummond added. If a consent is granted, it is applied to the property indefinitely but isn't carried with the owner and dogs if they move to another location. Council had granted six of the consents over the last four years. Five of the six cost between $1200-$1700 and had approval from affected parties, while the sixth cost $3600 and didn't have approval from all affected parties. Drummond said the council hadn't had to pursue enforcement against a resident who hadn't acquired the consent, but a breach would attract a $300 fine and a requirement to obtain the resource consent. Rural properties can gain a kennel licence which "seems to be more attractive". Drummond added the issue had not surfaced during recent reviews of the dog control bylaw or its fees and charges, nor were there requests to change the rule, which was in the Tasman Resource Management Plan. Nelson residents don't need a resource consent to keep more than two dogs on an urban property and instead just need permission from the council. Nelson council's group manager environmental management Mandy Bishop said after a resident completed an application form, the council checked for past complaints and inspected the property to determine if a third or subsequent dog may cause a nuisance. "If we grant a permit, it will include the names of the specific dogs approved. If the dogs on the property change, the resident must renew the permit." The permit applies to the dogs specified rather than the property with the permit needing to be renewed if the dogs on the property change, and can be cancelled by the council at any time. If more than two dogs are kept without permission, the council can issue an infringement notice. After three notices, a resident can be barred from owning any dogs for up to five years. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
