Further information requested

A consent authority may formally request an applicant to provide further information at any reasonable time before the hearing of the application or before a decision on the application is made if no hearing is required. 839

The council may also commission a report on any matters raised by the application if it believes that there may be significant adverse environmental effects and the applicant is notified and agrees to the report being commissioned. 840

The council must provide reasons in writing to the applicant for requesting further information or for commissioning a report.

Where applicants receive a request for further information they have 15 working days within which to either provide the information or advise the consent authority that they agree or refuse to supply the information. Where the applicant agrees to supply the information the consent authority must set a reasonable time within which the information must be supplied. 841

Where the applicant supplies the information or a report is commissioned the consent authority must give notice to all submitters that the information or report is available at the consent authority’s office.

If the applicant does not provide the information or does not agree to the commissioning of the report then the consent authority must still consider the application. 842  

However, the consent authority may decline an application on the grounds that it has inadequate information to determine the application. 843

The time taken for the applicant to provide the additional information or decline to provide it, is excluded when calculating the time limits for processing the application if it is the first request made by the authority and the request is made before a decision is made regarding notification. 4174  Any number of additional requests for further information can be made but the ‘statutory clock’ cannot be stopped.

The time taken to commission a report is excluded when calculating the time limits for processing the application if the applicant agreeing to the commissioning of the report. If an applicant does not agree to the commissioning of the report, the time taken to ascertain that is excluded when calculating the time limits for processing the application. 844  

However, a council should not use its section 92 powers simply to buy itself more consent processing time.

  1. Section 93 Resource Management Act 1991

  2. Section 93 Resource Management Act 1991

  3. Section 92A Resource Management Act 1991

  4. Section 92A Resource Management Act 1991

  5. Section 104(6) Resource Management Act 1991

  6. Section 88C Resource Management Act 1991

  7. Section 88C(1) RMA

Last updated at 5:03PM on March 9, 2015