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“Utterly unacceptable” is how Puhoi resident Cornelius Dirven has described recent correspondence with Auckland Council’s planning department.
He has referred his complaint to the Ombudsman after planners not only delayed his resource consent application, but expected him to pay additional costs for the delay.
Dirven owns just over 50 hectares on Ahuroa Road, west of the Puhoi village. He has subdivided four two-to-three hectare sections over the past four years and recently applied to subdivide a further two sections.
He says the application was straightforward and should have been processed within the 20-day timeframe.
“But the application, along with personal information, was referred to a consulting firm of planners without my knowledge or consent,” he says.
“After 18 days, they contacted me and said they needed another 20 days to process the application and that there would be additional charges. I had already paid $4000 when the application was submitted.”
In an exchange of emails, a council planner described Dirven’s insistence that the application be processed on time and for the $4000 fee as “unpleasant and abusive”.
The email went on to say, “I must highlight that the tone and content of your communication falls far below the reasonable standard we expect from our customers. While we accept you may wish to disagree with the opinion of the processing planner, there is no excuse for our staff, or consultants, being abused by the public for doing their job.”
Dirven says he went back through his emails and could not find “a single rude word” to justify the claim that he had been unpleasant or abusive.
“I simply made it clear that I was not happy at the delays, which looked to me like incompetence.”
