Do You Need to Consult With Anyone?
If as part of your AEE you identify any persons or groups who might be interested in or affected by your activity (e.g. adjacent landowners, local iwi, DOC, environmental groups) you should consider consulting with them before you lodge your application.
Talking with people who could be affected by your activity will help you identify things that people might object to and ways that you can avoid or mitigate the effects of your proposed activity.
You should describe in your AEE the consultation you have undertaken, why you think these groups are or are not affected by your activity, and what their views and responses were during consultation.
If they have no concerns you could ask them for their formal Written Approval. The reason you may want to secure the approval of anyone who might be affected by your proposed activity is to enable the consent to be processed more smoothly if Written Approval is already provided, and without the possible formal process of notification. The limited notification or public notification process adds time and cost to the processing schedule.
If you think your activity might affect local iwi, or is near a site of importance to iwi you should consider consulting with them. There are eight local iwi who have an interest in the Nelson region.
If this is a coastal permit application involving “occupation”, usually you must also notify and seek views from any group that has applied for recognition of Customary Marine Title in the area (i.e. local iwi). The only times you do not need to do this is if the coastal marine area is owned (freehold, and shown by a Record of Title), or if the area is a reserve, conservation area, or national park.
Written approvals
If your proposal is likely to affect your neighbours or another party in some way, obtaining their Written Approval beforehand and providing it with your application can speed up the consent process (e.g. if a new building is near the boundary where it might breach a daylight angle rule).
If you are asking a neighbour or group for their approval they will need to sign a Written Approval Form. The Written Approval Form is to be filled out both by the person applying for the resource consent and by the person who is giving approval to the activity in question. You need to provide the affected person with a full description and copies of any plans for the activity. As well as the Written approval form the persons need to sign the plans and/or other important documents, as this shows Council that they have seen all the relevant information and understand what they are giving their written approval for.
As part of the consent process Council planners will independently assess whether there are any affected persons who may/may not need to provide their written approval. If no one is identified the application will proceed. If anyone is deemed affected and written approval was not provided you will be written to and asked to seek it.
If a property has more than one owner Council will likely require signatures from all the owners and occupiers of the affected property, or a statement of evidence that the signatory can sign on behalf of others.
Download the form to obtain written approval: Resource Consent Written Approvals
FAQ – What does it mean if I give written approval?
If a neighbour or persons give their signed Written Approval to an application this means they are no longer considered to be affected by the proposal.
