26 March 2024
Media: Bay of Plenty Times
Topic: Dwelling consents trends in Rotorua
Enquiry
Following a request for information and commentary relating to building consents last week, the reporter was interested to find out more about why Rotorua appears to be bucking the Tauranga and national downturn in consents and had the following additional questions/requests:
This is super interesting, is it possible to get some more comment please elaborating more on why the council thinks it's experiencing this increase? Jason refers to the 'significant interest and investment', can he please expand on this more and why he thinks this is happening here and not elsewhere (especially when the national trend is one of reduced numbers)? https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/cost-of-living-crisis-building-consents-plunge-in-tauranga-amid-housing-shortage/LWPPIPF2OZAFDFZ5TEIWLK76SQ/
Can we also please find out what the building consent numbers were for 2010? (They're there in the graphic, but I'd hate to guess - looks like just under 200)
It'd also be great to be supplied a copy of the graphic we'd be able to use, if that's OK? Would you be able to provide it as an attachment please?
Is there any chance we could please be supplied a breakdown of consents for industrial/commercial builds in Rotorua as well?
I'd like to compare like for like, so ideally, can we please have how many consents were handled by the council last year and how this compares with previous years (like the dwelling graphic you offered below)?
Plus, how many were there in January this year?
If there is a drop (or increase) in this area, can we please have explanation for why this is thought to be the case?
Response
Additional comment from General Manager District Development Jean-Paul Gaston:
In the past we tended to be dealing with just a handful of local developers, including landowners like farmers looking to develop.
We’re now dealing with 20 or more developers including those based elsewhere and who have traditionally focussed on the likes of Tauranga and Taupo but are now active in other locations, including Rotorua.
We are working with developers and landowners on numerous large residential development opportunities (20 houses or more) and that includes inner city residential developments and large rural papakāinga development.
Developers are interested in making use of our medium density planning provisions and an increase in developers looking at affordable rental developments with many waiting to see if there will be support from the Government around this.
Part of the trend we’re seeing in Rotorua is down to timing of decisions and Rotorua now starting to catch up in terms of supply to meet the demand. This means we now have a solid pipeline of housing coming through.
We established a Development Support function within our wider planning team to proactively support major developments. This is part of council’s ongoing work to respond to the need for more housing and employment in Rotorua.
Staff work with large scale developers prior to applying for consent and our Planning and Consents team cover statutory services like subdivisions and land use changes.
Re commercial consents:
we don’t hold that info like we do the dwelling consents sorry and don’t have staff available to pull that data from our system within your timeframe. However, councils have to regularly provide consenting data to Stats NZ so you can access that there, which would also give you comparisons across the TLAs in the BOP and across NZ for building consent issued: https://infoshare.stats.govt.nz/Default.aspx
Re 2010 figures: Yes that is all under 200. Note, it is not a complete calendar year, starts July 2010. Did you want a particular month?
We attached a JPG version of the dwelling consents chart as requested.
