Recommended Steps

Get in touch early! 

If you are unsure about resource consents and what this means for your project, you are welcome to use our enquires and duty planner service to help you better understand the resource consenting process. For larger or more complex developments, we recommend you use our pre-application meeting service.

You can also check out guidance from the Ministry for the Environment.

To prepare your application please use the relevant application form and gather supporting information. In order to be accepted for processing, your application would need to include the following:

• Plans (at a convenient scale).
• Record of Title (within the last 3-months) and any Consent Notices and Land Covenants registered on your Title.
• An assessment of the effects of your proposed activity on the surrounding environment and people, and an assessment of how your application fits with the TCDC District Plan (Assessment of Effects on the Environment (AEE)).
• If required, relevant expert reports (e.g. Landscape, Geotechnical or Transport assessments).
• If required, a signed Affected Persons form(s). 

When you are ready to apply (with your application form and any supporting documents) you can email your application, post it or drop it in to one of our Council offices - go here for contact details.

For emails (the best way to apply), please put ‘Resource consent application’ in the subject line.  

Once we have received your application, we assess that it includes all the necessary details and supporting information in order to progress to processing. 

If your application is missing necessary information (assessed as incomplete) it will be returned to you. So that this doesn't happen, please thoroughly check that you have all that is required when you apply.

Once your application has been accepted for processing, a planner will complete a comprehensive assessment of your application and prepare a report. Your application will be processed as one of the following:

• Non-Notified: most applications are processed and issued a decision on a non-notified basis. This is where the general public or any specific person is not involved (or where you may have supplied a written approval to assist your application).
  
  
• Limited Notified: this is where we determine that a specific person or persons are affected and your application must be notified to them (and you have not provided a written approval from that person or persons). Further processes are followed before a consent decision can be issued.
  
  
• Publicly Notified: this is where the general public are invited to make submissions on your application. Further processes are followed before a consent decision can be issued.

Processing an application usually involves a site visit, referral(s) to other experts (such as specialist engineers) and we may ask you for further information. The process is longer for notified consent applications.

If required for notified consent applications, a hearing will be held before an appointed commissioner. In these cases, the Council planner will prepare an additional report for any hearing.

Please talk to the planner processing your application if you have any queries about the process.

Please expect that your resource consent will have conditions to comply with. Depending on the activity proposed and what conditions may be appropriate, we would normally give applicants the opportunity for feedback on draft conditions before the consent is issued. 

TCDC is responsible for monitoring resource consents to help ensure compliance with consent conditions and that your project or activity is undertaken as you say it will be in your resource consent application.

You can find out more about monitoring here.