Resource consent support for property developers

Consent strategy before you buy the site

The cheapest consent advice is the advice you get before you're unconditional. Before you commit to a site, we can run an early project review:

• What the district plan actually allows: zoning, density, height-to-boundary, recession planes, parking and access rules, and whether the Christchurch District Plan or the Selwyn/Waimakariri district plan treats your concept as permitted, controlled or a fight.
• The triggers you're likely to hit: earthworks volumes, flood management areas, overlays, ECan regional consent triggers (discharges, water, contaminated land), and access onto busier roads.
• A realistic consenting budget and timeline, so the holding costs in your feasibility are based on Canterbury processing reality, not the 20-working-day statutory number on the council website.

That last point matters. The statutory clock says 20 working days for a non-notified consent. Real-world processing runs 20–35 working days at Christchurch City Council, 25–45 working days at Selwyn and Waimakariri, and 25–40 working days for ECan regional consents. That is before any s92 request stops the clock. On a site you're funding at holding rates, the difference between those numbers is real money.

Subdivision and land use consents we manage

• Subdivision and land use consents: from the scheme plan and AEE through lodgement, s92 responses, draft condition review and council liaison to decision.
• Traffic impact assessments: the TIA, parking and access assessments councils ask for on multi-unit and subdivision applications, plus vehicle crossing design and approval once you're into construction.
• Condition drafting and review: consent conditions set your build cost. We review draft conditions before you accept them and push back where a condition is unworkable or over-scoped. A condition you accept is a condition you build.
• Council liaison through the whole job: project information and correspondence remain connected throughout the application.

The reports council will ask for: coordinate, don't duplicate

Subdivision and multi-unit applications pull in specialist inputs: traffic impact assessment, servicing and stormwater, geotech, sometimes acoustic or contamination. The expensive failure mode is commissioning them in the wrong order: a TIA written before the scheme plan settles, or a servicing report that contradicts the access design. We coordinate the inputs so each report is scoped once, to what that council actually requires, and they agree with each other when they land on the processing officer's desk. Working with an architect or designer on the plans? We back up their consent paperwork too, so the design and the application stay in step.

The economics of a Section 92 delay

An s92 request stops the statutory processing clock. For a homeowner that's annoying; for a developer it's a line item. Every extra month in the consent queue is another month of holding costs on the land, rates, interest, insurance, plus whatever escalation does to your build pricing.

You can't stop council asking questions. You can control how long the answer takes:

• Lodge complete. Most s92s trace back to gaps in the original AEE. A complete application is the cheapest insurance against clock-stops.
• Respond once, fully. A partial response earns a follow-up letter. We draft s92 responses to close the question the first time.
• Know your council. An application that anticipates what Selwyn District Council asks on Rolleston growth-area subdivisions gets a shorter, shallower s92 than one written blind.

For realistic cost and timeline ranges across Canterbury councils, see our guide to consent costs and timelines in Canterbury.

Your contractor's end of the job

Once the consent is granted, the physical works may need corridor access approvals and traffic management on the road frontage. If your civil contractor does not have that covered, CiviEase can provide CAR and TMP support for civil contractors within the same project file. Developers are one of six groups we work with across Canterbury; see who we help for the rest.

Frequently asked questions